Candy from Syndicate Strangers
by TrekPhile47
Summary: This is a story tracking the trials of Alex Krycek and his new partner over the course of two years, along the same timeline as Mulder and Scully's dealings with them.
1. In the Beginning

In the Beginning

Disclaimer: Alex Krycek, The Syndicate and CGB Spender do not belong to me; they are owned by Christ Carter and 1013 Productions. Any infringement on the cash they make is not intended. I make no money from this stuff (dammit). 

Spoiler: Anything up to _En Ami._

Keywords: Violence, Angst

Archive: Only by written consent via e-mail, [TrekPhile47@hotmail.com][1]

***

The Syndicate is a classic American answer to an atomic question: What do you do when the shit hits the fan? 

If there were any simple answer to that. No, the answer lies in forty years worth of research and testing, in forty years of note-taking and field experiments. There is no logic, no organization. There is impunity, which is crucial to painstaking work for the survival of six billion---no, make that a certain few. 

The answers to every life question lies among the stars. The answers to every X File created lies in the war of two alien nations, using Earth as one of many battle grounds. There are so many things to get done before the real threat arrives. There are so many jobs that need to be completed. There are so many gnats to swat at. The Syndicate created their own superficial government---a false hope to answer the Atomic Question. 

Loyalty in factions is what links everything in The Syndicate together. Everyone needs loyalty. 

Is there life after death? Life it too precious to let it be carried away be a demon of the heavens. 

Is there life on other planets? What is life when we don't take it for a gift? 

Is there madness besieging the Truth? The Truth is as mad as the moon. 

What happens when the men on the inside fall to the outside? You recruit. 

Who? Anyone stupid enough and disposable enough to take the job. 

And if they fail or fall away? 

That is not an option---no one walks away from The Syndicate. 

*** 

Alex Krycek waited for the call he was waiting for. Supposedly, there was going to be a special shipment or something like that coming in: he didn't know. 

He snorted, he was a Syndicate Soldier, but he was treated like some damn intern. Wonderful. 

Things between The Syndicate and he had soured somewhat around the same time as Spender left him in that missile silo in North Dakota. Every member of The Syndicate who had doubts about him in the beginning was starting to shun him like a dog that stained the carpet. Spender started his string of abuse, and of course, lack of faith in his abilities. 

The years of chasing Mulder were getting boring, mundane and predictable. Any thrill to be achieved lay in presenting himself to the Greys. 

So now, five years after it all started, the floodwaters were slowing to a small trickle. It's been a long time since Krycek had done anything worthwhile for the Syndicate (but then again, what is worthwhile when Krycek helped destroyed human's existence in the name of The Project?). He was sure thought that Spender had the plans for him (good or bad, he didn't know) to renew whatever failed faith there had been. Krycek knew it was only a matter of time before Spender came back. 

Krycek flexed his left arm---the arm that had once been cut off with the likes of a hot butter knife. True, he did have a prosthesis for a while, but he begged Spender to help him. At first, he refused, but Krycek had managed to get his way. 

The Syndicate's doctors attached a new bone with sparse muscle and veins and kept it wrapped up in protective cloth. Krycek has to take shots and vitamins with nutrients to nurture the new appendage to grow as his own. It had finished its last growing stage only weeks before, and the cloths had come off of the appendage, which looked hauntingly like the Grays. 

The gray skin was only from the nutrients, which had something to do with the Gray's technology, but it was assured that the skin would return to the pink color it once was. It now had a few red patches, but on the whole, he was pleased that he had his arm back. 

The phone rang and his heart stopped. When he regained control, he picked up the phone, "Krycek." 

"You know who this is," an old voice replied. "You have an assignment. There is someone that we want you to work with this time." 

"Fine," Krycek lied. "When and where?" 

"Washington, DC, the Starr Building, suite number 13. Seven o'clock." 

"Fine," he said, but then, the line was dead. Krycek's breathing slowed to relief; he let his head hang in half relief, half-disappointment. 

***

Krycek stepped out of the cab in Washington, DC. He pressed a twenty-dollar bill into the cabby's hand and didn't wait for change. He was going to be on time for once; his supervisors hated it when he was late. He liked being late; he enjoyed provoking squabbles with his superiors. 

He rolled his eyes as he opened the front door. The secretary shot him a look, but he ignored her. The last thing he wanted was a nosy secretary to start asking him whom he was going to meet. Like it was any of her business. He boarded the elevator as Miss Congeniality was about to open her mouth. 

He was going to get a partner. That was _exactly_ what he needed, a lead weight. Probably, he'd get someone who'd ask him questions relentlessly, hinder his abilities and most likely: drive him insane. 

He knocked on the door like an idiot, feeling half a grudge that he didn't get the company key. Oh well, some things jut weren't exactly meant to be. 

The door swung open and Krycek made his grand entrance. 

"Alex Krycek," the baritone voice came from the dark desk that occupied the room. He was startled, but not surprised: The Syndicate had a thing about sneaking up on him. 

He turned on the light to look into the face of CGB Spender. A smoking cigarette dangled from his scrawny lips. There was a gleam in his eye that disturbed Krycek. Spender didn't seem to be too enthralled with the situations unfolding around him: but then again, Spender had that unnerving quality about him. 

"You have a new assignment," Spender blew smoke into Krycek's face. He moved away in disgust, inhaling the smoke, and working on not coughing. 

"I know, I was told," he replied with a surly tone. 

"There is a microchip being shipped in from Eurasia tomorrow. You must retrieve it for us." 

"What's on it?" 

"Launch codes for a secret military aircraft: I think you know the one. If that chip gets into the hands of the government, specifically the X Files, the results could be disastrous." Spender replied. His cool voice spilled from his lips like ice water from a crystal pitcher, though not as refreshing. 

"I have a partner this time," Krycek pointed out with indignation: did he really want to meet him? 

"Ah, yes," Spender tapped his forehead as if he suddenly remembered. "Alex Krycek, meet Demona O. Launce." 

An overstuffed leather chair swiveled around and Krycek found himself face to face with a woman who stared at him with mute eyes. She was pretty: her face was drawn into a steel gaze, her green eyes blank, her hair pulled back into hair combs, but spilling recklessly over her sleek shoulders and her lips were drawn down into a sultry pout. Her long legs were crossed, her long arms folded over her lap. Krycek's body sprang to attention. _Down, boy_, Krycek warned himself. He forced himself to move over to her chair and extend his hand. 

"Pleasure," Demona took his gesture and Krycek could feel her strength in the handshake. Her eyes told him it wasn't a pleasure at all, she had no intentions of making partnership easy. Krycek nodded cordially, her feelings mirrored in him. 

"Miss Launce has proved herself perfect for out job, and we look forward to her...accomplishments," Spender ground out his cigarette. Krycek thought he could detect a smile crawling across Spender's face. 

Krycek leaned across the desk to speak to Spender. Demona didn't follow his movements, she instead picked up a folder and leafed through it, but Krycek was sure he was listening. "Did you give her this job because she was sleeping with you," he snapped. 

"I don't think that if she slept with me is any of your concern. She has been chosen for the job, and I don't think that you should get upset about it seeing as you have no choice," Spender said. He lit another cigarette and let the smoke slither out his nostrils. 

Krycek stared angrily at him and then decided to let it go. "So, were is this grand mission you have set out for me...I mean, _us_?"

"There is a small warehouse down by the docks, on Conover. The chip is in a large box with some ammunition to conceal it somewhat. The code for the door is...98324. You and Demona go: failure is not an option." 

"How comforting," Krycek muttered. He ground his teeth with force. He looked down at Demona, "Shall we?" 

"I suppose," she replied with even measure. She seemed to have taken lessons from Spender. 

"Oh, Krycek," Spender said before he could leave. Krycek whirled to face him. "...Please take care of this one," Spender asked, raising a skilled eyebrow. 

Krycek smiled: he knew exactly what Spender wanted. He could smell the money that was in it for him. He turned on his heel and left the office, Demona followed close behind him. 

So far, she hadn't said five words and Krycek already hated her. Well, not hate; just resented. If Demona Launce could get the job by sleeping with Spender, who could he himself sleep with to get a promotion? 

Now, she just looked at him with her quiet eyes. She seemed to be reading into his head, decided whether or not she really wanted to work with him. Her mouth had drawn itself from the sexy put into a frown. She narrowed her eyes and struck like a cobra, "I know you want to believe that I slept with Spender to get this job. You couldn't be more wrong." 

He chortled sourly, "Oh really? So tell me...Demona: how _did_ you get this job?" 

"Spender came to me, asking me if I wanted to. I said yes," she replied. 

"That simple? Did _you_ get a rundown of everything," he asked. She knew what he meant: was she just Spender's plaything? 

"Listen, _Krycek_: I don't know what stick was shoved up your ass and for that matter, I don't care. If you want to act like a child about this, feel free: but don't make this my fault," she snapped angrily. "I also don't care what you think of me, but I agreed to work for The Syndicate, I'm in this for what its worth." 

Krycek cocked his head. He wasn't so sure he would have expected that to come out of her mouth; but then again, some of his best consorts were woman...and just as bitchy as that. "How...quaint." 

They stepped out of the building and into the parking lot. The night had descended fairly quickly on DC. It was only a matter of minutes before the nightlife came out from the shadows: the drug dealers, the pimps and the whores. Too bad Krycek was on work detail. 

The company sedan was parked in an empty slot out far from all the other cars. Demona pulled the keys out of her pocket and slid into the driver's seat. Krycek frowned: how sure was he that he wanted her to drive? Maybe it was some big macho-man sexual thing, but he liked to drive. He slid begrudgingly into the passenger's seat and felt the engine purring like a cat in its master's lap. Demona pulled out and drove down the street. 

God, if there was one thing (and only one thing) he liked about Launce, it was the fact that she had a lead foot. She was well over twenty miles over the speed limit on the roads. She didn't seem to care that she was going fast, either. She rolled down he window and let the wind blow through her silky mane. Krycek was sullen as he stared at the road ahead. 

He was willing to try again, to perhaps recoil whatever he had let slip from his mouth first. "Can I ask you a question?"

"I guess," she replied, willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. "Are you going to use me as your verbal dart board?" 

"No," he replied flatly, "I just wondered why you wanted in on The Syndicate in the first place." 

Silence filled the car as they drove along the dark streets. She seemed to be formulation what wouldn't come out sounding like a lie. Finally she spoke, "I was approached by Spender before I graduated military school. ...He made me an offer I couldn't refuse." 

"You really don't know what you got yourself into," he replied honestly, and she scowled at him in return. She obviously didn't want anyone to confirm whatever doubts she might have had. 

They pulled up to the docks and each stepped out of the car. Demona let the door hang open, as she smelled the air. "Things haven't been moved lately. That's good. We get in, we get the chip, and we leave as quietly as possible. Easy enough?" 

Krycek stared at her: there was something totally ardent at the premise of a woman who was in control. Not even as if the sex in and of itself was the case---it was the fact that she knew she could take control of him in any moment. If she told him to fetch-and-carry, he'd go running in a heartbeat. Krycek decided not to even ask; Launce would probably lay him open without batting an eye. 

Launce didn't wait for him to follow as she pulled a pistol out of the small satchel in the back of the car and she put the gun in a shoulder holster. They were both dressed in dark clothes, although Demona's definite femininity poked out in all the right places; enough to turn him on. Krycek allowed his eyes to meander over her body, making sure her eyes didn't see him doing it. 

They reached the warehouse door and Krycek tapped at the panel. Krycek tapped the code in; hoping it would work and not make him look like an imbecile, that was his luck with most locks. The heavy lock thundered open in the still night Demona slithered through the small crack, with Krycek in pursuit. 

Surprisingly enough, the guards who were on duty were not alarmed when they had opened the lock. They were both busy with their own things to notice. Krycek and Demona ducked behind a crate and waited in silence, listening to bits of information. 

"Come on," Alex said. Together, they moved closer to the men using the huge warehouse boxes as cover. The two were only twenty feet from them. 

"Where is that chip anyway?" the one asked, sipping a mug of something steaming. 

"In the box over there, along with a couple of weapons," the fat man grabbed the cup from the other and took a swig. The thin one grabbed it back. 

"Over there," Demona pointed to the box by the two, "that's where it is." Well disguised for what it was holding, it was a simple wooden crate with the words "This End Up" in bold-painted letters. 

"We have to kill then, you know," Krycek pointed out, with sly anticipation. 

"I know." She leveled the gun at the one's chest and pulled the trigger. He reeled backwards with the force of the blast and the thin one didn't have time to even turn and run before Demona shot him, too. She winced with the gun's kickback as she finished him off, too. 

Krycek held his breath as he walked to the dead men: he never did well around dead bodies. Demona was beside him. She dropped to her knees and took a deep breath in, Krycek thought it a fetish, but realized what it was as she recoiled as she got a good whiff. "Sweet Jesus, this guy was a drinker." 

"Well, you just helped along the process," Krycek kicked the body once with the toe of his boot. 

"Don't," she took his arm, she looked thoughtfully at her handiwork. 

"A double-agent with a conscience. Isn't that an oxymoron," Krycek said. 

"I'm surprised you even know what that word means," she replied. Krycek returned her nasty look. 

They moved to the bodies and Demona searched through the pockets. Only coins, wrappers, notes, wallets and keys. None of them seemed to have and relevancy. Her eye caught an unusual-shaped key. She picked it up and slid it into a pocket. 

She and Krycek went to the box and looked at it, both quiet for a few moments, like there was something behind it going to jump out and scare the shit out of both of them. There was a heavy padlock on the box that held the computer chip. Krycek leveled his gun at it and fired. The padlock fell off the crate. 

Demona kicked the lid up. Spender had been right, inside there were guns and ammunition. Krycek moved away all of the firearms and inside was a small, lead box. Demona picked up the box and fiddled with it cluelessly, looking for any mechanism that might open it. She remembered the key she pulled off the fat man and slipped it into the tiny hole in the box. The lid popped off the box easily. 

The computer chip was very small; Alex picked it up and turned it over in the faint light. "This chip has all the military codes for flying one of those alien aircraft." 

"Alien craft or smutty novels, it better be _damn_ worth what we went to get it," Demona replied snidely, examining the green plastic and lead soldering on it. 

"I'm sure it will be," Krycek said as he turned to the door. Demona took the chip, slipping it into another one of her pockets secure in her belt at her right side. 

Together, they walked swiftly to the door. Krycek eyed a blue tarp on the floor with a dip in it. He knew that there was a hole in the floor and if the information was correct, the warehouse had been built over the harbor. 

As Demona passed it, Krycek kicked the bottom of her foot cautiously and she fell in. A cry echoed in the warehouse as she fell. She grabbed the floor with both hands as she passed it hanging precariously by her fingertips. 

"Krycek! Help me!" her voice called to him. The shock of the fall had left her without strength; she could not pull herself back up. Krycek moved to the hole and dropped to his knees. He grabbed her left wrist and her eyes stared up at him, scared and unsure. 

"It's okay, I've got you." His hand went to her waist, grabbing onto her belt and deftly. His fingers opened up the pocket with the computer chip. He felt around for it with his forefinger and thumb and he picked it out of her pocket. He then released his secure hold on her belt. 

"What are you doing," whispered acrimoniously. 

"I'm taking the chip," he told her. He dropped her wrist and for a moment, she flailed wildly but she grabbed the ledge once again. 

"Krycek! What are you doing?" No answer. She began to struggle for a handhold. 

He stood up slowly and Demona's face grew pale, "Krycek! You can't leave me here!" 

"You're right," he bent down and let his face float close to her. He kissed the tips of his fingers and pressed them to her cheek, "But I have to." He stood up and stepped backs, watching the horror on Demona's face unfold. 

"You can't leave me here: you need me! Krycek...you bastard! I'll kill you, I swear to God; I'll kill you! KRYCEK!" Her curses were useless. Her body shook in horror and in anger as she heard his footsteps stop and the heavy warehouse door slide shut. She growled and angrily and focused herself. She hung for a few moments, letting her muscles uncramp and she pulled together all of her strength to pull herself up and out of the hole. 

She looked at the cadavers on the floor and then turned away. She swore to God that she would use her last strength to kill Krycek. Debts repaid. 

***

Spender looked at Krycek as he walked into the office. So did everyone else in The Syndicate who'd decided to finally join the party. "Do you have the chip?" Smoke floated away from Spender's talking lips, a smile twisted across the ominously. 

"I have the chip. ...Where's my money?" 

"Patience, Krycek. Did you do the other half of our deal? Is Demona disposed of?" 

"Yes, I did exactly as you said. She should have frozen in that water by now," he felt a bit of guilt push into his subconscious. 

"Very good, Krycek," Spender replied. 

"If you had any doubts about disposing of Demona, then you needn't worry. She was not one of us," the Well-Manicured Man said. "Your money, by the way, is on the desk." 

Krycek looked at Spender and hesitated for a moment. Then, he snatched the money and exited the building. The money was cold and weighty; it was blood money---Demona Launce's blood. 

***

Demona stood in the alleyway of the shabby apartment buildings. She looked up to the only darkened window on this side of the building. She crouched low; breaking through the window, knowing Krycek wouldn't be back yet. Within moments, she was inside the dark apartment and she sat on a chair...waiting for the inevitable. 

She knew that Krycek and the group had sold her out on purpose, and then ousting her as if she was a broken toy; she hadn't known that then, but she knew now. She kicked herself for letting it all be so obvious: all of the signs pointed at it. She gritted her teeth in anger when she felt those fingers of Krycek's on her cheek. It would take weeks of washing.... 

She would get her revenge. She waited patiently---good things come to those who wait. 

***

Krycek opened his tenement door, throwing the money onto the table next to him. He leaned heavily against the door and rubbed his face. He allowed a twinge of remorse to pass over his body, but it was dried up the heat of the money that he'd received. Espionage was a definite bitchy mistress. 

After shaky moments, he flipped the light switch on and saw a specter. He gasped and the figure jumped on him. Its arm was in his neck, strangling him. 

"Demona," he choked. Her angry eyes burned into his face; he now knew what pure hatred looked like. 

"If you leave me for dead, you better make sure that I'm dead before you leave," she hissed in his face. She pushed harder on his neck and he coughed once, gasping for breath. 

"I...had to do it," he wheezed. He looked about him like a crazed maniac: perhaps he was buying time for his life, bargaining with the devil, not intentions to actually win, convincing himself that he wasn't wrong in doing so. 

"You tried to kill me!" 

"Spender wanted me to do it," he said. She had lightly released the pressure in his throat. 

"I'll kill him, too," she said. With her right hand, she pulled out a boot knife, and allowed him to look over it once, letting him know she had every intention of using it. "But, you're going to be the first." 

"You don't kill Spender, and I'll be damned if you kill me," Krycek brought his knee into her stomach and she dropped her arm down. He kicked her away. 

She slashed at him wildly with the knife. It connected once with his stomach and he could feel the stinging pain as he moved his torso. 

He swung down and across on her face and she fell to the ground. He was about to leap on her when she rolled away. He smashed his head to the floor, missing his target entirely. He felt his eyes well with tears of pain felt and something warm and thick slide down his upper lip. 

Demona brought her booted foot into his gut twice. She went to go get her knife that had fallen from her hand and stepped over Krycek as he watched her pass over him, he grabbed her ankle and pulled it out from under her. She cried out in an animal howls and it was her turn to head for the floor. Krycek listened with morbid satisfaction as he heard her skull smack the floor. She paused long enough as if in some temporal flux to cradle the back of her head. 

As soon as she regained control of her pain, she grabbed the knife and flipped over. Krycek pulled her closer to him. He stared into her eyes and this time he saw hate and fear. Hate for him, and fear that she might fail what she had intended when she came. 

He slugged her once in the eye and she stabbed him in the arm in quick reflection. White flashed over Krycek's eyes and he clutched his arm. Demona took the opportunity and hit him in the chin with the handle of the knife and he sprawled backwards and Demona was on top of him in nanoseconds. 

"Just ask for mercy and I won't make it hurt," she held the knife to his throat and he didn't say a word. She pressed the knife into the skin to tempt him to beg. Blood trickled from his neck; he was not going to be stoically silent, waiting to see if she had the balls to do it to him. 

With a howl of his own, he kicked her over his head with amazing strength. He watched as she went end-over-end above him and then heard her back connect with the floor. When she was on the ground he kicked her once swiftly in the temple. She curled into a fetal ball, trying to gasp for breath and grip onto consciousness. Krycek loomed over her, looking down at the feral mass. He knew better than 

to tempt the tranquilized proverbial tiger. He glared angrily, unmoving at the woman who had failed an attempt on his life. 

Demona tried to get up, but unconsciousness tugged her brain. She groaned in agony. She listened to the hammer of a pistol being cocked. 

"Kill me you bastard," she whispered fiercely. "Do it! You know you want to!" 

Krycek stood over her, unmoving, taking aim at her temple. She herself was oddly impassive as she stared down the barrel of his gun. He flared his nostrils, and allowed a murderous grin cross his lips. He uncocked the gun and put it in his hip-holster. "You're not worth it." 

"You lousy coward," she spat. She made no attempt to thank him for sparing her life. 

"I've been told," he replied with equal vehemence. "Stand up." 

She obliged him. She didn't know if he was going to take here right there or strangle her to death with his bare hands. She would have preferred the latter. She allowed him to place a hand behind her head and gently touch the bruise on her forehead. She winced when he moved his hand on her head. He parted her blonde hair and saw a hideous bruise on it. 

"It'll look nasty, I'll tell you that," Alex said, in a surge of odd temptation, he gently moved the hair back in from her face, finding himself drawn into her eyes. "Not so tough now, are you." 

"Pain is only weakness leaving the body," she quipped, pulling from his gaze. 

_Piss and vinegar_, Krycek thought dourly, "I should have killed you. I had the means and God knows the intentions to do it." 

"Then why did you stop?" 

"I don't know...call it 'temporary insanity.' ...After all Spender wanted you dead." 

"I know," Demona replied. "He'll pay." 

Krycek turned for scant moments to look at his pile of money. "Like I almost did?" He smirked and turned back to her. Demona was gone, but one of the windows was open. He moved to it and looked out. "I have to admit, you're very good, Demona Launce. Better than I once thought," he whispered. "Perhaps I judged you too quickly." 

***

Demona kicked in the door of Spender's temporary residence. He looked startled, and Demona leveled her pistol at his throat. "You better not move for that gun. I can make you a woman before you can reach it." 

"Demona; I wasn't expecting you," he said politely. 

"Don't you dare lie to me; you sold me out and then had Krycek kill me," she still held her gun at groin-level. 

"I had to. You may know too much already, The Syndicate needs blind eyes." 

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," Demona replied. 

"Please, Demona, I want to speak civilly to you, not over the barrel of a gun." 

"You liar; you really think I can trust you?" 

"No, I don't think you can. But perhaps you may want to take a leap of faith?" 

Demona was quiet for a moment. She sized up her intentions and realized what was in her best interests. Perhaps she needed to hear him out. She may get into understanding what the Syndicate was all about. She dropped her hand to her waist; relief passed visibly over Spender. 

"I though you trusted me. I thought you wanted me to be part of the group. Then again, you didn't exactly show me too much of everything. I want you to explain everything about The Syndicate to me," she ordered. 

"I can't just tell you in one sitting. You have to understand that you mission is to steal vital things of great importance to us. You know that, you accepted it," Spender replied. 

"Why kill me?" 

"Like I said before, 'blind eyes.' I'm not the only one who distrusts. It is part of our standings. The people I work with are never interested in the people, only the means. One or two dead bodies adds up to little or nothing to them," he said. He offered her a cigarette: when she declined, he lit it for himself. "We're not used to someone who does the job so thoroughly." 

"A little tough to find help these days," she quipped. 

"Don't be impudent. I can make you or break you." 

"Then please; get to the point." 

"The long and short of it is, is that we honestly were a little scared." 

"Tell me what I am doing to contribute." 

Spender sighed; ready to give the soliloquy that never satisfied Fox Mulder. "There is a battle waging between two worlds: too aliens and ours. The battlefield: Earth. We have to fight both or else we'll get blown to hell. There are hybridizations going on, there is technology being developed to combat these two threats. So far, only little bits of our mission---The Project---have been completed." 

Demona looked at him, "How am I supposed to believe this? It's not exactly textbook." 

Spender handed her a folder about eight inches thick. It was enough to make Fox Mulder make a mess of his expensive suits, but couldn't be shown to him. "It's all in there." 

"All of it? Will there be a final exam?" Demona took the weighty folder. 

"Don't be impudent," he retorted again. "What you want to see is in those files. Read them carefully. ...They are what you are loyal to." 

-End-

   [1]: mailto:TrekPhile47@hotmail.com



	2. A Sinner's Soul

A Sinner's Soul

Disclaimer: Demona Launce belongs to me; The Syndicate and CGB Spender belongs to Chris Carter and 1013 Productions. No infringement intended.

Spoiler(s): None

Keywords: Angst, Violence

Archive: Only with written consent of the author;[TrekPhile47@hotmail.com][1]

I know it's full of angst, but who is a human without something to shape the character?

***

Yulianna Jarkov watched as her family was murdered. She watched in the silent wonder that any four year old could as the dark man came up to her parents, and elicited a response in her father. The murder was a man who'd intended a robbery, but had gone terribly wrong as Yulianna's father grabbed for the gun. The gun fired twice, making Yulianna's ears hurt, and it was only then that she started crying. When she hit the ground from her mother's arms, she cried harder, feeling the burning pain as concrete collided with baby flesh. 

The gunman looked at Yulianna, his eyes filled with confusion: could he kill a child? He leveled the gun at the crying baby, but decided better of it. He turned and bolted: a memory of the street. 

Yulianna crawled to her mother, the pain in her knees and wrists disabling her, "Mama? Papa?" There was no answer from either of them; they lay still, their blood pooling around their bodies, the gunshot wounds budding on their chests like roses. 

Yulianna's chubby fingers wove through her mother's hair. She cried harder, not understanding why her parents didn't come to soothe her pain. 

***

Yulianna sat again only a week later, as quiet as a mouse when the new woman came to see her in the orphanage. She was tall and proud, her hair shining and her eyes smiling. She picked up Yulianna and tossed her into the air, laughing as Yulianna squealed with delight. 

"Sweet Yulianna," she cooed. "My name is Nina and we're going to America." 

Yulianna didn't know this woman or what this trip entailed. All she knew was that Nadia was going to take her away from the orphanage, where she was picked on and had nothing to gain. 

The beginning of her downspiral began then. 

***

Floor five, apartment number 452: a nice, two-bedroom apartment on Manhattan Island. It was full of furniture and books but it was rarely lived in. It was an empty home of empty promises for an empty future. It was lonely and full of nothing; no signs of love or comfort in this house. 

It was the home of Demona Launce. Their feelings were mutual: she didn't love it back. 

She hadn't lived here long, maybe for a year at the most, since she had been given an opportunity in America again. She had spent most of her childhood in a scrappy woman's shelter with her "mother." Before America, there was Russia, her home and the land where her pain began as she had been introduced to this new mother. She went back to ensue a five-year stint with a man she had come to know as a father, a friend and a lover she had never had. 

She had started her life without anything---and now she had everything: money, a nice home, status, food in her stomach---

And false hope. She hadn't felt the pluck of real hope in years. It was a dull ache she couldn't avoid. 

It was almost as bad as the memories. 

***

"Yulianna," Nina slapped the child hard. It was lucky that she had even connected the blow. 

"Mama, no!" the girl cried with a voice and wistful pain that could only come from a child. She was silenced by another jab at her face from Nina. Yulianna began to bawl pitifully like a wounded animal as she pushed herself lower towards the vent behind the shabby cot. 

"Give them to me," Nina hollered, grabbing for Yulianna's frail arm. Her eyes were bloodshot from her shooting up and she was so high she was seeing double. She was looking for the bag of marijuana that she had misplaced. She grabbed again at the six-year-old's flailed arm and yanked her from behind the cot. Yulianna howled in pain as the open vent ripped flesh from her arm. 

Nina shook the girl hard, screaming at her until her head rolled around like a rag doll's. The tiny girl screamed and tried to get away from her mother. "Give me my bag!" 

"I don't have them," Yulianna cried, her voice thick with sobs. Nina slapped her until the skin was red and purple from the bruises. 

"You liar!" Nina screamed at the child. She shook Yulianna again until the mucus ran thick from her nose into her silently screaming mouth. Nina continued her abuse until Yulianna sank to the cot, unconscious. 

Nina looked a an hour later and found the bag had been in her pocket the entire time. 

***

Demona's answering machine blinked red with messages. 

She looked the thick folder on the table that had been lying there for the better of two weeks unopened, then put her jacket over it as a second thought. 

"Demona, this is your banker, Anthony Ludlow. Please call back: 555-6676." 

She didn't have time to bullshit her bank account: there were more important things to worry about. Things like her next meal, the next assignment, staying one step ahead of everyone else, trying not to fall---

Erase. 

"Demona Launce: you have just won---"

Erase. 

Last message. The harsh and scratchy voice was unfamiliar, but as she listened to it, she recognized it. It was the voice that had elicited fear in the back of her mine. "Yulianna, this is your mother. Why hadn't you told me you moved back to New York?" 

__

Because you're a cheap whore, Demona thought with rancor. 

"Yulianna, I want to talk to you, I want to understand why you ran away." 

__

Wild guess, Demona cursed, her fist dangerously hovering over the machine. 

Erase---no wait, don't. 

"Mother" was noting more than a greedy crack-whore that wanted a child of her own, even if it wasn't hers. "Mother" wanted this child not to love, but to give for a hundred dollars a pop for crack money. 

"Please, Yulianna, I love you. My number is 555-3863." 

__

What a lie, Demona thought. Nina Grigorevny probably wanted Demona to do her a favor, probably drugs. 

Demona picked up the phone to dial the number, then put the phone back on the cradle. "I can't..." 

***

"One, two: buckle my shoe.... Three, four: my mother's a whore.... Five, six: pick up sticks.... Seven, eight: she's gonna stay out late.... Nine, ten: I'll never see her again...." Yulianna chanted over and over again, rocking her body back and forth on the back stoop of the woman's shelter. 

Everything hurt. All of her muscles hurt and even her thoughts hurt, and so did the scar from six years before. She felt bruised battered and dirty. Nina had brought home her boyfriend to try to get some drugs for herself. At Yulianna's cost. 

Yulianna could feel Isaac's 30-year-old body pressed against her twelve-year-old one. She defended herself with her teeth---like a wild animal. Trying to maintain a 175-pound man's most primal of urges. She failed. Isaac beat her, then left with Nina. 

Yulianna stunted her tears. No one saw her tears, no one cared. 

There was no reason to cry. 

***

Demona picked up the folder from beneath her jacket. She opened the manila envelope for the first time, feeling the stiff paper in her hands. 

Hands shuffled over paper; over files, pictures and eye witness accounts. Olfactory senses smelled the death the blood and the bile that lifted from the freed pages. Ears could almost hear the screams of the dying. 

__

They are what you are loyal to.

There was no loyalty to Demona. It was whomever she felt like humoring. Her eyes grew wide and her jaw hung as she looked at the graphic realism of a Stephen King novel's source. 

__

They are what you are loyal to. 

If that was the case, Demona was loyal to a forty-year project to evade two alien races that wanted to destroy each other. Battlefield: Earth. 

It was too tabloid to be true. 

She began with the eyewitness accounts. Thousands of doctors from hundreds of countries, each accounting the truth as they had seen it, then confiscated. Each was a tale of horror: bodies that did not die, that bled green and held blinding gas inside them, that melted into green puddles. There were fantastic accounts from people who had been attacked with men who had no faces, who had seen one man go into a room, but another had come out. 

She read medical forms. The biological forms of what a human/alien hybrid is comprised of. They were human from the egg, but alien from the sperm, genetic materials of extra-terrestrial origin. The hybrids display inhuman strength, invulnerability, and activated brain parts not normally found in humans that result in far-reaching mental abilities from visual and mental stimuli. 

She read official forms from The Syndicate claiming that all hybrids that had been found and/or discovered were killed by the Faceless Rebels/Alien Bounty Hunters. The Grey aliens however, provided genetic material to provide hybrids from only select few to anger the Alien Bounty Hunters. 

Demona's mind raced as she read completely valid accounts of completely true things. 

She got to the pictures. 

She felt sick as she saw each picture that had been stuffed haphazardly into the folder. Some were formal pictures of patients who were being autopsied on, their innards decimated by the "Black Cancer." There were organs that had been compared to healthy organs. There were pictures of live patients whose skin was red and blotchy from radiation ands were stuffed with thin spaghetti in swollen lines. Eyes had been pulled forcibly open, exposing nothing, but milky black reflected the flashbulbs. 

The candid pictures were sickening. Patients lay strapped to tables, ominous silver tools hovering over them. The patients were screaming, their faces red with the effort and the veins in their necks bulging. Pictures of barracks where test patients were cowered in the corners, their eyes haunting with pale skin that almost glowed. Their eyes were portraits of fear, allowing the viewer to delve into their frightening reality. 

There were bodies stacked in mass graves, all slumped over one another, stacked in disposal, all embracing one another in their death. 

Vomit pushed up from Demona's stomach. 

__

They are what you are loyal to.

It was a train wreck---Demona was morbidly fascinated and couldn't close the pages. 

Her hands shook and her knees refused to hold her. 

It felt like she had been throwing up for hours. She hung onto the side of the toilet, every thought of the patients brought dry heaves of saliva and blood spilling from her mouth. Her sides ached from retching so hard. 

Having everything in her stomach thrust outward made her feel better about what she had just read. She didn't have to look at the pictures without not having to feel the pain that came with the files. Maybe she should have started with an empty stomach. 

Demona didn't even bother to brush her teeth of the stomach acid, there was no way she could get rid of the feeling those pictures gave her. 

__

They are what you are loyal to.

Loyalty to such a thing as that was a loyalty to Satan himself. 

It made Nina Grigorevny seem like a saint. 

***

Yulianna had finally taken some pity on Nina, now that she knew a little bit of what Nina was going through. She had finally read in a stolen library book about the results of narcotics. She knew all the symptoms of a high, and knew what happened because of them. She had felt something move towards her surrogate mother, who'd assured Yulianna that she would have died if it weren't for Nina's good nature. And Yulianna believed it. 

So now, at sixteen, Yulianna was taking care of her mother, holding her head above the toilet as she retched unconsciously into it. Each heave brought a wave of foul smelling stomach contents, making Yulianna nauseous along with her mother. 

Yulianna bathed Nina in one of the bathtubs, washing the vomit of days before from Nina's body, stoically silent as she did it. Yulianna had given up crying so long ago, since her mother's boyfriend raped her. She hadn't cried since. 

She dressed her mother in a pair of warm pajamas that were given to the shelter by a charity. Just as Yulianna put her head between her hands to sleep another night of nightmares, Nina heaved another bout of vomit onto herself and the pajamas and Yulianna had to clean her all over again. 

Yulianna could never forgive her mother for making her a caretaker when she should have been out with other kids her age, drinking beer and getting laid. Yulianna hadn't seen a day in weeks when she had bothered to drift outside of the woman's shelter and high school. It was amazing that she kept her good grades despite the way life was crumbling around her. 

She was starting to get more depressed and detached from the world, her only escape was drawing the scenes she had dreamed for herself that she wished was reality. She slowly began to fall into self-loathing and hate, convincing herself she was everything that Nina's drunk-induced anger had stated: she was nothing more than a two-bit whore. Yulianna desperately needed some to love her and to love in return. 

Empty hope in an empty heart. 

***

Demona felt a little better after she had taken a shower. The water was scalding hot; peeling off the flesh that had seen The Syndicate madness. 

She thought of the time that she held her mother above the toilet and felt an entirely new low feeling in her body. 

She picked up the phone again. "I _can_ do this," she whispered to herself. Her fingers shook as she pressed in the phone number. 

"Hello?" 

"Hello, Nina?" 

"No, this is Katy. ...I don't think Nina can talk right now." 

"Get her," Demona asked. 

"I---"

"Please..." 

The person on the other line grumbled and paused. She heard rustling and soft words. A coughing noise full of rattling came to the phone, "...Hello?" 

"Nina?" 

"_Yulianna_? Oh, God, I didn't think you'd call. It's so nice to hear your beautiful voice." Nina's voice was soft and rattled, not like it had been when Demona had left. It was so different. 

"Don't flatter me, Nina. I want to know why you called me." 

"To talk to you, Anna." 

"Bull. You have never wanted to just 'talk.' What do you want from me Nina?" The words were harsh and angry, and Demona couldn't believe she was standing up for herself this way. 

"I'm your mother---"

"You kidnapped me!" 

"You would have died---"

"You should have let me!" 

An aggravated sigh and then an angry coughing retching noise. Demona could hear Katy conversing with Nina. Nina sounded like she was shaking her off and then came back on the line. 

"Where'd you get my number, Nina?" 

"I have my ways," Nina replied. "...You changed your name?" 

"I did." 

"Demona Launce...I like it." 

"I didn't change it because you would like it," Demona hissed sharply, biting back her spite. 

"No," Nina admitted; she was quiet. "...I have news." 

"Like what?" 

"I'm sick." 

"How sick?" 

"AIDS sick." 

Demona choked. She felt odd tears prick her eyes in pain as she listened to the inevitable truth of a crack junkie that she had longed to hear. "...AIDS...?" 

"Yes, Yulianna, AIDS. ...Full blown." 

"How long?" 

"I've known since about a month ago. ...I also have pneumonia." 

"Sweet God..." Demona croaked. She pulled herself into a fetal position; faintly listening to her mother's rattled breathing. 

"Where are you?" 

"At a hospice on Marylyn Avenue." 

"That's about fifteen minutes from here." 

"Please, Yulianna, I don't want to die alone." 

"It's okay, Nina. I'll be there." 

"I love you, Yulianna." 

Demona cringed and hung up the phone. 

More lies. 

***

It had taken weeks of planning and a failed suicide attempt for Yulianna to realize that her life was spiraling down to nothing. She'd have to start a life anew if there was any chance that she could live with herself. Yulianna had nothing with her, save the mental anguish and faint scars on her wrists. There was no way she could get from New York to California without anything. 

Nina had hid sixteen tiny bags of coke beneath her cot and had left it there without a thought and went out to be with her new boyfriend. Yulianna took it and left. She began her life from there, hoping she'd acquire something for a new life. 

The ride across the country was seedy. Every couple of hours, she had to find a new trucker, and new excuse to get in their cab. But she enjoyed the travelling. Every four hours, there was a dramatic change in scenery, which kept her transfixed in her dream world. She didn't care what happened to Nina at this point, Yulianna was now 21 and she was old enough to take care of herself. She always slept with one eye open, always watching to make sure the truckers wouldn't harass her. 

The only other possession she had was the wishing and the praying that somewhere else it would be different. She listened quietly and solemnly to the trucker's stories about their families and wished that she had a family of her own to share funny anecdotes about. Someday, maybe she would. 

***

The hospice was cozy, but there was the conspicuous smell of death. There were signs and flowers and hopeful posters, but behind them all was the truth---no one left alive. The walls were covered with pictures of the "Faithfully Departed," each person smiling out past their illness/pain and into the camera lens. The pictures were across from the main desk where two nurses arduously worked on preparing people as comfortably as possible for their own deaths. 

After what Demona had just read this place was the nearest thing to heaven for those about to die. 

Demona watched in a dumbed stupor as a family came out of one of the far rooms, clinging to one another, weeping. They had faced of pain that offered her to join them in their misery. 

__

But you don't understand, Demona screamed, _she never loved me, she only used me!_

"May I help you," a nurse asked as Demona approached the desk. She was no older than she was and she looked ragged: like she had been running around catching falling vases that would only break anyway. She looked like hell, and then again, Demona probably did, also. 

"I'm looking for Nina Grigorevny." 

"Ah yes, room 12," the nurse said. "By the way I am Nurse Hathaway." 

"Demona Launce." 

"We have so many AIDS patients here, Miss Launce, but by far, Nina is probably the one who has the most hope." 

__

Hope? Something didn't add up. "Are we talking about the same person?" 

"Are we?" 

Room 12 was a plain room: there were no flowers, no cars, and no well-wishers. It was pitiful. 

Demona pressed a hand to her mouth, pushing back tears as she saw her frail "mother" lay back in the pillows. Her skin was so ashen the veins (though collapsed from drug use) were prominent through the skin, and Demona could hear her breathing. Her eyes were sunken and her lips were pursed, it made her look like a horrific ghost. 

"Yulianna," Nina rasped in person for the first time in seven years. 

"Ma---Nina?" 

"Come sit with me," Nina said, extending a bruised hand with a feeble smile. Demona didn't take it, but she did sit down. 

Katy spoke softly, "She's got a high fever and her breathing has become strained; she's taken a turn for the worse." 

Demona looked up from Nina; her background in medicine told her where this was going. "How long has she got?" 

Katy looked over at Nina who nodded. "Only hours." 

Demona pressed her hand farther to her mouth. Call it Stockholm Syndrome, but now Demona couldn't bear to watch her mother die. 

"My name is Demona now and I have become a different person that Yulianna Jarkov. ...I can't forgive you for those years ago, you know that," Demona whispered, "but I cannot allow you to die alone." 

"I can't ask you for your forgiveness, Demona, but only from God. I just want you here with me." 

Demona let a tear fall down her cheek---the first in years. Nina had taken her when Nina was seventeen. Now, only forty-five and Nina was dead. There could have been time for them to try to make amends, but hours weren't enough to reconcile twenty years of the past. Why? 

"Please don't cry," Nina begged. "You do not love me, I know that." 

Demona battled her tears, but didn't deny Nina's point. There were so many years of pain that Demona could never believe the lie that Nina offered forth. 

"Why did you do it?" 

Nina sighed, "So many reasons back then: they were all legitimate, too. Now, they are nothing more than ashes of passion that I once knew." 

"What could have been so important?" 

Nina looked stricken, "I loved you from the moment I saw you, I wanted nothing more than to have you lighting up my life I wanted to care for you in the worst way." 

"And your idea of care was taking me out of Russia, beating and _pimping_ me," Demona hissed. 

"It was the drugs," Nina admitted. 

Demona gave an angry sigh and walked to the windows, avoiding the accusing look from Katy. "How many others have you infected?" 

"I don't know." 

"Do you feel guilty that you have killed so many people?" 

"_Enough!_" shouted Katy, who flew at Demona. "She's dying, can't you see that?" 

"And finally leaving me alone," muttered Demona in a voice too low for Nina to hear. 

Katy slapped Demona. 

Demona grabbed Katy with both hands at her neck. She could barely contain herself to not break it; she instead held her fast. 

"If you _ever_ touch me again, I will break your neck. You don't know me; you don't know my past with Nine and all the pain she has given me. I wouldn't risk it, understand?" 

Katy nodded and coughed hard. Demona let her go and Katy bent over, regaining her breath. 

Nina looked at Demona with a stricken face, "Demona?" 

"Don't try to understand me, Nina," Demona honestly requested. "It happened after I ran away." 

***

Just when things were supposed to get better, they got worse. The boat ride to Russia took months. With the drugs handed over as some freak currency, Yulianna Jarkov gained hidden passage over the Pacific Ocean on a boat named _The Czarina_.

The passage wasn't safe. Yulianna was 21 and alone for three months on a ship full of men. The officers figured no one could hear her scream. 

She didn't care anymore, she was on her knees for all of them, over and over again, and giving them every pleasure they could want. She was in the captain's bed whenever he wanted so that the other sailors wouldn't go any farther than blowjobs. 

She had known her first pregnancy within the first two months of her trip, but the captain forced her to abort the fetus; and there was no way the captain would ever have admitted that he had an illegitimate child to some American whore when he had a wife at home. Yulianna didn't cry for the baby that never was. The only pain she felt in her body was of the self-induced abortion. 

In Russia, she was free from Nina and all the pain that came wrapped up in the package. There was a possibility for a new life in her homeland. And that was what drove her to wake up each morning, despite the obvious holding her back. 

Things had changed since she was there last. Russia in its new struggling Capitalist economy was a weak answer to America's wealth. There were no jobs for Yulianna to find. Being poor in Russia was worse than being poor and homeless in America. No one offered her a place to sleep at night or food. 

Prostitution was the only option. There were so many government officials willing to pay for a night of high-priced sex without the nagging after. For a while it was the only thing Yulianna knew. She had become quite skilled in the area, though she was not proud of that: it made her feel dirtier than when Isaac had raped her. Another pregnancy and the fear of AIDS were enough to make her stop, despite the fact that she was poor. 

She began to go door to door, begging for food. It was a hopeless endeavor, but she needed to feed herself and the baby. (And then soon after, the baby miscarried after two weeks from the coat hanger abortion she had given herself on the _Czarina_.) 

Her last try was a large home on the rich side of the city. Chances were that the man had gained an upper hand with privatization before Communist Russia fell. 

Shaky hands knocked on an expensive door. She was so weak and hungry, and her body ached from loosing the second child. 

"Hello?" The man who answered the door was about 30, with light skin and hair. He was as lean as a beanpole, but well muscled. His eyes looked over her with concern, eyeing the bruises and her uncomfortable stance. Yulianna almost fell in love with him right then. 

"Please sir, I need work. I'll earn whatever keep you can offer me." 

He regarded her quietly, knowing what she needed. "Please, come in: you need medical attention first." 

"Thank you..." 

"I am Vitaly Viyatkin." 

"Yulianna Jarkov..." she trailed off as she was enamored with his wealth. Yulianna had never known anything other than her cot and her clothes. Vitaly was wealthy beyond Yulianna's wildest dreams. The warmth in the house was enough for her to curl up and go to sleep. 

***

But she never had to sleep on the floor. Vitaly had given her a place to stay. Never as hired help, but as a daughter and confidant. 

Then he was a lover to her. It had happened more suddenly than anything that Yulianna had ever encountered had. 

"Yulianna," Vitaly asked from the edge of her bed. He had taken her hand gently and looked at her with his piercing eyes. 

"Vitaly," she responded with curiosity. 

"I'm not going to ask you about your past, I know that you want to forget it more than anything else, but I want to be a part of your future. I want to be your lover." His body met hers and for a fleeting moment, Yulianna felt the warmth of a love that didn't involve drugs or abuse. 

He loved her harder and so much more than she had ever known from anyone. It was so much more that she could ever hope for. He was never harsh or quick to judge: he accepted the fact that she had never loved anyone, and so he moved her slowly into their relationship. He was always forgiving and nurturing. 

He had filled her body with hope and love. 

---And opened torrential floodwaters. 

***

"Demona?" Nina's voice was nothing more that a hollow whisper. 

There was so much pain in Nina's voice that Demona sat back down and buried her head in the warm bedsheets. She felt Nina place a hand on the back of her head. 

"What did you do when you were gone?" 

"Maybe things are better left unspoken." 

Nina nodded. Her body was wracked with coughs and while Demona held her up, Katy cleared Nina's throat of blood and mucus, almost unaware that she had AIDS. Demona wept at Nina seemed to flounder for breath. 

"...Have you a job here in the United States?" she gasped. 

"Nina," Katy looked pained. Was there any chance that Katy and her "mother" were lovers?" Demona didn't know. 

"No, Katy. I barely know my Yulianna: I can't die without knowing my lover's daughter---my daughter." 

"Please..." Demona begged. No more lies, _Nina, you're dying in your bed and you are still lying to me._

"My job...?" 

***

Yulianna enrolled in military school as a med student. It was that rigorous training and rigidity that she had needed. She excelled at it, and it was what she wanted so badly---someone who cared about her success. 

There was no chance of her ever going to be on the front, but there was the chance she could be a military nurse. 

In her fourth year, a man who would change her life approached her. 

"May I sit," an old man asked. He was American, but he spoke broken Russian. 

"Sure," Yulianna replied in his tongue. He must have been surprised that she had a perfect knowledge of American. He lit a cigarette. 

"You are training to be in the military?" 

"I am," she affirmed. 

"Are you willing for a job that could give you some action?" 

Yulianna looked at him: what sort of action? Id this was some sort of sexual favor, Yulianna would knock this bastard on his ass. "I suppose: what are you offering?" 

"If you finish training at the military school and graduate, we'll hire you. When do you graduate?" 

"Wait a minute: who's 'we'?" 

"A small group of government workers in America." 

Yulianna nodded; and job in the United States government was worth having, "I will be graduating in two weeks." 

"We'll be waiting," the man said. "How shall we address you?" 

"Yulianna Jarkov." 

"You have to change it for US papers; there's red tape to get through." 

She nodded and thought earnestly, thinking about a new identity that could finally enable her to she d the old one: "Demona Launce." Demona for Desdemona, the Shakespearean heroine who died for her innocence, Ophelia (the middle name) for Ophelia of "Hamlet" who went mad because of her life falling apart; and Launce for Eduard Launce, a Frenchman she'd whored for who had encouraged her afterwards to be something better and giving her a thousand American dollars to get herself started in a new life. She owed herself to those three, hoping that Eduard would see his request someday filled.

"My name is CGB Spender. Welcome to The Syndicate, Miss Launce." 

***

Nina had grown silent as Demona had reminisced. Now, seeing Nina so vulnerable scared Demona and her heart churned in absolute fear. "Nina?" 

Nina's eyes opened slowly and then fluttered up to Demona. They were glassy, but their still showed some recognition beyond the drugs that kept her from feeling any pain. "I changed when you left. It convinced me. I quit shooting up and got myself into a program. ...I guess I had hoped that meant that you would come back." 

"No," Demona admitted regretfully. "I didn't know you had gone that far. I would have been proud enough to have come back to see you, though." 

"I met Katy in the rehab hospital. She was going through the same things as I was." 

Katy looked a little embarrassed but she smiled at Demona, "Nina is a good person when she isn't high. She accepted God into her life and let His love consume her." 

Demona nodded, although she wasn't sure whether or not this was a ploy for her to become a born-again Christian. There had been no God in her life; it had always been her own will that had kept her alive. God was someone who had turned a blind eye on her so long ago, and there was still resentment in her heart that Demona had to deal with. 

"Nina always spoke so lovingly about you," Katy offered. 

"What?" 

"Honestly, she always wanted to thank you for helping her during your teenage years...when you had a godly compassion." 

"Don't relate me to God, Katy," Demona asked. "I am not like God; He always loves when all I can feel is hate."

"God also forgives His people," Nina said, touching Demona's cheek. "I know He forgives me, and if me, then He will forgive anyone." 

"Nina, I...." 

"Thank you for caring for me back then." 

"I...you...my...moth," Demona stammered. 

"Yulianna," her voice had fallen further. 

"Nina?" 

"I'm so sorry. I took your life from you." 

Demona choked on her tears. 

"Our father...who art in heaven...hall...hall...be thy name," Nina wheezed. 

Demona was shocked. She had never heard a word of prayer or any word so lovingly from Nina's mouth. Katy began to pray with her and Demona looked at them both with an alarmed stupor. Demona couldn't pray, she couldn't go to a God who surely couldn't forgive her, no matter what Nina said. This was it, it was going to be the last thing the Nina would say before her lungs collapsed under their own sodden weight, Demona just wanted Nina to know peace.

Nina's eyes fluttered then shut, and Nina stopped murmuring. 

"Nina? Nina? …Mama?" Demona's voice was hysterical. "Mama!" 

"She's in a coma," Katy said, tears streaming down her face. 

"I never forgave her," Demona whispered, holding Nina's weak hand. "There was so much that I wanted to say to her. I wanted to forgive her." 

Katy placed a hand on Demona's shoulder, "She never expected you to forgive her. She knew that there was too much that she had done to you to ever expect forgiveness from you. She's dying in peace having you here." 

Demona shook her head in disbelief. "I...loved her, in an abused child loving blindly, I loved her. ...She was the only mother I ever knew." 

"And she loved you, Demona. Drugs change people beyond their wildest nightmares. There were things that Nina related to me that she never got to tell you: she wanted to turn back time and be a mother to you. She wished on God's holy head that she could have watched you grow into the beautiful woman that you are now standing in front of her," Katy sobbed. "She dies now in peace, having seen the woman you became." 

"The woman I became..." Demona shuddered, "I am not a woman, I am a monster; created from the streets and brought up on shattered dreams and living nightmares. She wouldn't have liked who I became." 

"And what did you become, Demona?" 

"I...have a job that...kills innocent people and will destroy themselves along with the rest of us," Demona sighed; she knew that answer would sound like she herself was on drugs, but it slipped from her mouth nonetheless. "I can't leave." 

"Time heals all wounds," Katy replied. "Give yourself time and you'll see the truth." 

Demona took Nina's hand, it was too frighteningly frail. "I learned to live without you, but you always followed me. Maybe it was a sign. ...Why did it have to end like this?" 

Nina said nothing. 

"Would you like to go home, Demona? All there is here is to watch her die," Katy offered. 

It was a tempting offer. This last hour of reminiscing and sitting with Nina left Demona emotionally drained. There was nothing more to say to Nina, nothing that would make any more of a difference now. But somehow, there was no way that Demona could leave and forget Nina: as much as she wanted to try, she couldn't leave. 

It was hours later that Nina Grigorevny passed away. Demona watched in pain as Nina took a last breath and let it slide away like a bird on an updraft. 

Then she was gone. 

Demona watched in a dream as Katy discussed funeral arrangements for Nina. Demona could only stare at the woman who had caused her so much pain over the years. 

She stopped at the chapel. The wood cross with the figure of Jesus on it looked at her silently. Demona sat in a pew and looked at that cross, staring at the carved details; each lock of hair, each thorn that disappeared into the Christ's flesh, the small tunic around his midsection (the only thing that kept Him in some dignity), the pierced flesh at his side.... 

"I can't mourn," she offered the cross, "After all this, I can't mourn. ...Can I be forgiven?" 

The Christ looked back at her, offering her a silent answer. 

"Please, if I believe in you, will you believe in me?" 

***

"Vitaly?" 

"Hmm?" 

"I'm leaving," Yulianna said. "I've been offered a job in America, and I have taken it." 

"If it makes you happy?" 

"I'm hoping it will." 

"Then you must go. I believe in you, Yulianna, and I believe that you will find something equivalent to peace. …I love you." 

"I love you, too Vitaly. ...Thank you for believing in me." 

"I have never thought anything else." 

***

If Vitaly---human and not divine---could believe in her, then the Son of God could also. As she left, she picked up a wooden cross on a cord. The placard above the crosses said they were the crafts of Michael Orville, who died a only a week ago of cancer, he made them so that people could know his faith. 

Demona held the cross tightly in her fist, wishing and willing to believe: hoping that Nina had finally gone to a better place, hoping that Nina had found peace. 

***

Demona sat again in her apartment, fingering the wooden cross. She looped it across the famed picture of her and Vitaly---the only memory that she could hold on to her only lover. That lover was slowly being replaced by other people; by other things that had more importance now in The Syndicate. 

She was so messed up. In The Syndicate, where she thought that she'd finally found happiness, she had found empty dreams. 

She couldn't leave The Syndicate unless she died. 

...Maybe she too should start on drugs. No, she couldn't watch herself spiral into hell---again. 

Maybe it was only a matter of days before she decided to floss with her S&W lady pistol. 

Nina had found peace, now why couldn't Demona? She felt a streak of jealousy at her newly deceased mother. If her mother had found solace after all those years, there had to be hope for her. 

***

Demona arrived at the meeting place within two weeks of her mother's death. She could smell the old people in the cramped sedan. Spender didn't notice---or care---that Demona's voice was hushed with pain. 

"How was your reading?" 

"Sickening," Demona replied. 

"Well, you seem to have a better reaction than most." 

Demona sighed and stared out the window into the park. Children of three, four and five played on the primary-colored, government-funded jungle gym. Her stomach turned involuntarily. She watched as the children laughed and teased, running and jumping. Would her own children have been brothers/sisters/brother and sister? Demona shook the thoughts away and looked back at Spender. "What is my mission?" 

"Get disks from London: they are important. Your ticket and syllabus are in here," he handed her another folder in exchange for the one she had. 

Demona nodded and exited the car and it roared way. A baseball rolled from the playground and hit her well-dressed foot. She picked it up and handed it to the child who had come after it. She handed the ball into the hands of a smiling child who thanked her profusely. The mother, once wary of her child going up to a perfect stranger, smiled at her in thanks. There were still good people out there. 

...Good people.... 

No way out. 

-End-

   [1]: mailto:TrekPhile47@hotmail.com



	3. Save the Enemy

Save the Enemy

Disclaimer: Alex Krycek doesn't not belong to me, he belongs to Chris Carter and 1013. No infringement intended. 

Spoiler: _En Ami_

Keywords: Angst, Violence

Spoiler: None.

Archive: Only with written consent of the author;[TrekPhile47@hotmail.com][1]

*** 

What do you do when the enemy is your friend? What do you do if your friend is the enemy? You see, you can take the statement and make it converse to suit your needs. 

Sometimes that is good, sometimes that is bad. Most of the time, it depends on who put the spin on it in the first place. 

So tell: you know the enemy as the friend, you know the friend as the enemy. Would you save the enemy? 

*** 

Demona Launce approached the office in London, England with stealthy movements. She went to the door and paused for a moment of uncertainty. 

She had received her assignment from the Syndicate two days before: get the disks with further plans for The Project on them. Failure was not an option. Under the alias Lara Lyons, UN secretary assistant, Demona managed to create less of an uproar than had she gone under Demona Launce: spy of The Syndicate against the rest of the world. She knew this was going to be easy---like the microchip that she has gotten before, the disks would be in an unmarked box in one of three different areas of this warehouse. 

Demona noticed that the numbers on the keypad of the outer door were worn and she began tinkering with 5-number combinations. It took her several tries for her to get the correct one. The bolt inside the plate glass slid in the door and the alien-blood green illuminated the doorknob. Demona pushed in the door, swinging it steadily. Slipping through the crack, she entered the warehouse, but took a moment to rest in an alcove before moving on. 

In her shoulder holster, her Sig Sauer gleamed, poised and ready for use; other trinkets and toys filled her pockets. She waited a couple of moments before she was up again and darted behind boxes down long rows of shelves. 

She was pretty sure that the weapon wouldn't be in the office section. Too many people walked by there...too many nosy people. The door was also locked, but only with a deadbolt. It would most likely be in the warehouse/storage section. 

She saw a door at the end of one of the rows and sprinted to it. Ten feet away from the door, the storage row ended into open space, Demona dove into a roll, making as little of herself known. 

She thought maybe she hadn't been seen in that moment of vulnerability, but she had misjudged whom she was up against. A shout caught her attention. A bobby was running straight towards her, weapon drawn. Demona's brain froze for a moment, but then she made an immediate decision---she ran. 

She must have caught the police officer off his guard because he stopped, not knowing whether to pursue her or get backup. Those critical seconds gave her the start she needed. Only moments passed before she heard the heavy footfalls of uniform dress shoes after her. 

The clock was ticking. 

The man's shouts barely registered in Demona's head as an adrenaline rush ran past her ears. She felt as if she were flying as she whizzed around another corner and up another aisle, her boot barely making a sound against the concrete. The pursuer grew farther and farther away as she darted throughout boxes stacked high and as menacingly as precarious stones of the Arizona desert. 

She was breathing heavily as she slowed and stopped. She couldn't hear anything behind her. Then again, the steps had to compete with the wild hammering of her heart. She knew that not having the guard coming after her was a mixed blessing. She didn't have to run now, but would have to when the cop came with backup. 

She thought that maybe she could escape if she could not be found. She jumped and caught an iron ledge and began to heave herself up. She only made it far enough to hook her chin on the bar when she heard a voice call out to her. 

"You there! Freeze!" Demona turned to find the voice and saw the guard she thought she'd escaped---he must have taken a shortcut. "Get down from there." 

Demona stared into his gun and complied, dropping to the floor and pausing, waiting. She did not want to get confrontational, so she resisted shooting him right then and there. He motioned for her to get on the ground and she descended slowly onto the cold, worn concrete. She smelled the unpleasant smell of cleaning fluids and grease oil. 

"You don't understand," she began; her voice was muffled by the floor, and she wasn't sure if the guard had an itchy trigger-finger or not. 

"You: quiet," he ordered. She listened to him click back the hammer and she flinched. She could almost feel the gun pointed at her head. He wouldn't shoot first and ask questions later---would he? She didn't want to misjudge him and end up a bloodstain on this floor. 

As she rolled to the left, she heard the guard's gunfire and the bullet ricochet off the floor. She ripped the Sig out of the holster, looked, aimed and shot over her left shoulder. She heard a sickening squish and a thud as the body fell to the concrete floor. 

She turned around to examine the full extent of the damage she had done. She was a crack-shot, her aim impeccable. He stared at her with glossy dead eyes. His blood was running away from his body, and her fingers reached out to touch it morbidly. It was fresh and warm and runny, but would congeal soon enough. She left the body behind. 

Demona ran to the end of the aisle and followed the wall back to the door. She had probably alerted everyone under the sun to her presence and she didn't have time to go clean up her mess. This door had another keypad on it, but the numbers weren't worn away like the others. 

This door hadn't been used as often as the first one, and she was willing to bet this was the door she was looking for. She couldn't waste time and fiddle with combinations. She ran her fingers along the floor, lifting fine dust and she had an instant idea. 

She lifted up more of the powder and placed it on the palm of her left hand and blew all of the powder off her hand and onto the pad. Only the keys with oil and finger residue held fast the gray powder. She could see used numbers. 

She had to try quite a bit of combinations, and time was a precious commodity...too precious for her to buy. She swore she could hear footsteps and punched wildly at the keypad. The bolt on the door clicked and Demona pushed through the doorway, letting the door hiss shut behind her and the office hallway embrace her. 

She took a blessed sigh of relief and was amazed to feel her hands and knees shaking ever so slightly. She gave herself a few moments time to recover and she then rose to her feet and looked at the keypad. The low-set lights made it hard to see around her. She noted that from inside, she could change the code and she did. It would keep the people out for a little while. 

She quickly assessed herself, making a mental health check: all was good, just a little shaky. She began a slow and steady path down the hallway. There were no doors down the hallway of the other office attachment, just a straight path. It turned sharply and Demona followed. The dark hall grew brighter and brighter until Demona was in a more spacious area of what looked like a laboratory. 

Floodlights in corners lighted the room, illuminating frightening exam tables. Cabinets with no doubt dissection tools and solutions lined the walls. Bunsen burners lay on metal countertops beakers and test tubes sat lined up n rows like a pristine classroom lab. 

She bit her lip and let out an exasperated growl. She couldn't believe what she had put herself through to enter a room with nothing more than tissue cultures and horror-house tools! But, she chided herself, some things set you back a few steps, a calm and clear head helped you catch up. 

She tired to figure out why this room was here and what relevancy it had, but images she conjured up were revolting. Turning around slowly, she examined the room entirely. One wall had a large vent, an image which she stowed away in her mental bank. 

She finally noticed the door ant the end of the room. She grinned slyly and moved to it. To her luck, there was no keypad, no lock whatsoever and the handle didn't catch on anything inside the door. She opened the door expecting to go down another hall. 

She cried out as a man with a gun exploded from an alcove the door protected. Demona instantly grabbed for her pistol, but he had his own gun leveled at her chest, fingers against the trigger. She removed her hand from the holster and raised her hands slowly above her head. 

"Remember me," the voice was heavy and for a moment, she thought of the officer that lay dead in the warehouse. Then the voice registered. 

"Krycek!" 

"That's right." 

"You jerk," she spat, "get that gun out of my face." 

He obeyed with reticence and she looked at him with contempt, "What the hell are you doing here?" 

He got inches away from her face, "I heard someone coming and I looked for cover." 

_Coward_. "Why are you here in the first place," she asked, glaring at him with evil contempt. He seemed to not notice her evil glance. But, if he had, he did nothing about it. 

"I was sent here to look after you," he said. 

"Watch after me? Don't think that I can take care of myself, Krycek? I'm a big girl." Demona's teeth were bared like a tiger, Krycek didn't dare stick his fingers between the bars to tease her, either. 

"You think that I would rather be here when I could be in the States," he said just as simply and angrily as she had. He met her level for level, stare for stare, tooth for tooth. 

"I don't know what goes on in that puny brain of yours. But I will suggest that you take it and your slimy self and climb back under the rock you evolved from," she replied. She narrowed her eyes, waiting for what he had to offer back to her. 

"Listen, I could stand here and match insults with you, but I am not in the mood for it. If you think that I am here to bail you out if you get in trouble, you've got another thing coming." 

"Is that right?" She rolled her tongue in her mouth, it felt thick and heavy. She worked on her demeanor carefully, "Why are you here?" She shifted uneasily, waiting for guards to come looking for the commotion. 

"Spender sent me," his words were simple; his eyes held devilish mischief. She wanted to slap that smirk off his face. 

"Why does he care? For God's sake, he was the one who sent me here," Demona narrowed her white eyes at him, and he felt another chill in his body. 

"He wants me to make sure that you have no second thoughts about your mission," Krycek let her think these words over and he took a look at the room they were in. Quite a place to put a series of top-secret disks; instead of an office it was a lab. 

"My mission is clear: I don't sell-out. So you are right: you would be better off in the States." 

"That's not it," Krycek said slyly. "'Chickening out' is not what Spender is afraid of. Spender does not want you to betray him..._us_. Now that you know everything about the Syndicate; what is keeping you from going to the government who pay you royally?" 

"He thinks that I would betray him! If I remember correctly, he was the one who sold me out---with _your_ help! You both wanted me dead!" 

"Exactly," his voice had grown heavy with mystery. "If indeed we sold you out as we did, what would stop you from giving the weapon to the American government? Perhaps to get back at us?" 

"Probably the fact that if the Americans had these disks, they wouldn't know what to do with them and they couldn't do a damn thing about then," she told him. "Hell, if anything, _I_ would keep them." 

"That was why I was sent here, to make sure that you didn't thwart this mission," Krycek raised his head with his own arrogance. 

"Screw you," she hissed. 

"No thank you," he replied with a smirk. "You're not my type." 

Demona's mouth puckered and she spit in his face. He felt the wetness fleck against his cheek. He wiped it from his face with disdain. Before she could react, Krycek raised his hand; he brought it across here face brutally. Her head jerked to the side and she held it there, blinking away the stinging pain. 

"Bitch," he hissed. He narrowed his eyes and watched as Demona looked back at him, tears of stinging pain lining the corners of her eyes. He was halfway sorry that he had done it, but she had instigated it. 

Her eyes flickered for a moment, and then all sparks of life or of fighting back had been killed. The marks of his fingers were once white pressure marks, but now they were turning bright red. They looked as if they stung like angry hornets. "I guess you are going to follow me whether or not I have a say." 

"I have to," he replied with a little guilt. 

"Just stay out of my way, then," she deliberately pushed him as she passed and looked into the vent that she had seen before. It blew stale air in her direction, sending tendrils of hair across her face. She shook them away. Alex looked on, not trying to notice how good she looked---despite the fact that she was a pain in the ass. 

She removed a small screwdriver from one of the opulent pockets in her clothes. She made short work of the screws holding the vent against the wall and ripped it away. Krycek dodged it as it clattered past. Demona put a hand over her mouth and Krycek figured that he should do the same. As she passed into the open vent, Krycek saw the pink insulation fibers wafting in the breeze generated by the circulation system. 

Krycek just barely saw Demona's figure as she climbed into the darkened space. He heard the slow creaking and clanking as she moved through it. He searched for a foothold or a niche in the wall. It was then that he realized that Demona had gotten up inside the chambers by jumping. His jaw hung at half-mast---it was a near seven-foot jump. 

He tried to jump once. He reached the chamber with his head, but he couldn't feel for a crook in the floor of the tube. 

"Hey, could I get a little help here," he called into the dark. The clanking stopped for a moment, and then an angry but audible sigh followed. Her shadow appeared at the side of the chamber and she looked at him. 

"Here, take my hand," she offered to him. 

"Glad to," he replied and she rolled her eyes in disgust to his humor. He wrapped his rough fingers around her tiny ones as she helped him scale the wall of the vent. When they were both in the cramped area of the vent, Demona was a hell of a lot closer to Krycek than she cared to stomach. 

"You first," Krycek let her slide past him and for a moment, he smelled her perfume: it was sweetly intoxicating and he allowed himself to briefly indulge. 

It was then that Krycek felt the blast of piercing cold that tore through his clothes and stung at his skin. Cold air reduced germs, and as a general rule, scary laboratories were generally freezing. In the dark, he could only barely see his breath swirling in front of him. He could only see the faint silhouette of Demona ahead of him; all he saw was the small amount of movement that she made in the darkness. 

She switched on her flashlight. "I can barely see a thing up here." 

"I dunno, I'm getting a pretty good view back here," he said, avoided the backwards kick that she sent towards his face. "I was kidding." 

"You are so juvenile," she sniped. She kept moving forward and Krycek followed her closely, using the reflections from the flashlight to guide them. They went all of fifty feet when the vents forked sharply. 

"Where to," Krycek pulled himself next to Demona, just barely able to have his own breathing space. 

She pulled a small map from the pack on her pack, hastily scribbled on a piece of hotel stationary. She put the flashlight between her teeth and studied the map dubiously, her LED green eyes darting about the paper. The information of the ventilation system was easy to get, she wasn't sure if she was going to need it or not. Studiousness and thoroughness came in handy when one was a spy. 

Krycek fought the cold; he blew warm air into his hands and rubbed them together vigorously. "Aren't you cold?" 

"Yes," she wanted swat at the mosquito named Krycek, but she didn't feel like getting his guts on her hand. 

She looked finally at the map; she knew where they were now. "To the left," she pointed over her left shoulder. Krycek inched backwards awkwardly and gave her room to maneuver. She turned first her shoulders, then her hips and then her legs. He stared at her in admiration: her movements were so feline, so smooth. 

She moved so quickly and quietly, proof that she had been taught well by whoever had trained her. Demona and he would have made a good double-agent team. He just had to get past the fact that she had horned in on his job...then maybe. 

There were so many twists and turns in the vents that Demona wondered if she was leading them in circles. The area had grown larger, and there was enough room for them to sit up and move with relative ease if need be. 

There was a sharp drop in the vent that caught Demona off guard. Her hand slipped out from under her and she landed hard on her left side. The flashlight slipped out of her stinging fingers and rolled out of her sight. She leaned over the side and her fingers scrabbled all over the floor, searching for the light, but it was gone. 

"What's wrong?" Krycek asked. The stop in motion worried him slightly. Then the light had gone out, and the thud was unnerving. 

"I dropped the flashlight. I think there is a gap in the floor where the stale and the fresh air meet and circulate. The flashlight fell down in it," Demona shifted herself in the narrow tube. Krycek figured that she had turned to face him though he couldn't see a darn thing. "We're going to have to work blind." 

Her voice was dangerously close to him; he could feel the moistness of her breath on his face. He instinctively recoiled and he pressed against the wall. "Stay close to me, Heaven forbid you get lost." 

He nodded even though she could not see him; a hand brushed up against him, searching for his own. For a minute, he let the hand search, but he finally took it: her skin was very soft and comforting. It pulled gently and he followed. 

"Do you think we'll make it?" he asked her. He wasn't afraid, he just asked it to say it---to fill the dead air created by their holding hands. Demona knew he wasn't afraid either. 

"Yes," her voice was full of assurance, matching her feelings. As long as Krycek didn't screw something this simple up, there was no way that they wouldn't get out of here. Her fingers squirmed for space beneath his, his fingers just barely tightened around hers and the pressure that was once there was gone again. She could only barely feel his hand on hers, and despite herself, her fingers floundered in his palms. "I'm going to change positions, don't break our link and move slowly," she warned. 

Alex heard Demona shift ever so slowly and carefully around and he waited; she began to inch along on her back. It wasn't easy crawling around in the pitch-black tubes using only three appendages for balancing posts, Alex affirmed. He was afraid to put down the fourth appendage that might have been used had he not been holding Demona's hand---afraid to crush her china fingers. 

As Demona inched along in the dark, she strained to see what she was doing. With her head up, it was impossible for her to see the vent dropping out below her. 

She inched along still until the entire floor had disappeared. Her scream was audible as she fell down, down, down...down into what seemed like eternity. 

She finally hit the bottom with a loud splash. She took a deep gasping breath and realized that she was inhaling water. In her acute fear that hit her, she floundered for the surface, but she didn't know which way was up. The cold stabbed through her body with an alarming vigor. She turned again in the black water and managed to get to the surface. She took deep breaths, feigning hyperventilation. 

Krycek had felt her hand torn away from him and he struggled in the dark to follow the scream. He inched forwards so quickly that he too fell into the hole. His ragged outcry was no more than a harsh whisper. He felt the freezing liquid engulf him and he felt his side hit the bottom of the pit with fire. He reached the surface, kicking and gasping, but not without feeling the fire from the injury. 

They both stood in waist deep water. Demona then choked some up from her lungs. Part of her violent expulsion hit Krycek; the water was faintly warm from being inside her. But, it was more pleasant than having the icy knives of pain stabbing him. Her coughing ceased after only a few moments more. 

Krycek looked around, but there was nothing to see, it was pitch black. The water in the pit was frigid to match with the air and perhaps was even worse. They both stood in it and they shook with the imminent cold, trying to catch their bearings for a moment. 

He heard Demona rummaging about and then a cracking sound, and then the room was illuminated only moments later by a sickly green glow: he was thankful, any more darkness and he would have gone insane. He looked at her in the light and saw the purple gash that marred her creamy smooth forehead, which was oozing. She must have noticed it; she went under the water and resurfaced with the blood cleaned from her face. 

Krycek himself was quite ashen, his breath flowed from his nostrils and lips pale green. He looked everywhere that there was light bouncing off the walls. He looked into Demona's eyes for a second, and fear tinged in them. Inside, he laughed: the great spy was human after all...he had begun to wonder. As quickly as their eyes had met, they darted away again. 

Demona shone the small light in the area that they were trapped in. It was deep, and the only way out was to go up. And "up" was quite high, about ten feet into the air. The distance they had fallen was pretty far, considering that they were in a ventilation system. 

"It smells like antifreeze," she murmured as she flashed the light around. "This just _can't_ be." 

"What?" Krycek looked at her with anticipation. For a moment, it was more than anticipation---it was pure fear. It made him rigid for a moment, but then it was gone and his body relaxed again. The cold hit him as soon as he relaxed his muscles. 

"The fact that there is a space ten feet deep and five by five feet wide---in a ventilation system? There is no need for it at all. Then, there is the fact that there is water in the bottom of it," she said. Her voice shook from the icy waters lapping around her waist. 

"Maybe we passed from the ventilation system into the water pipes," Krycek suggested, but the offer seemed weak, even to him. His shoes, soaked through with water, searched the bottom of the pit, searching for even a minuscule trapdoor. For anything that would get them out of there at all. 

"Possible, but unlikely." 

"Then what is it? Where the are we?" he mustered a low shout. 

"I don't know!" she shouted back. She bit off the rest of her remark; anyone near the vent system or what this was could hear her screaming at Krycek. 

Krycek looked at her in the pale light again and her image shook in front of him as he quavered in the Arctic air. "It's so cold." 

"The air is at freezing point," she told him, "The water can't be much warmer...maybe twenty degrees warmer." 

"It's a comfort to know I'll be freezing to death and it's not at the hands of the government!" he snapped at her. 

"Would you calm down? Instead of yelling, why don't you save some heat while we figure a way out of here?" 

She pulled a bit of wire from her pack that was floating on the water. She attached to it a piece of metal that with a flick of her wrist sprang open to reveal three prongs. She handed Krycek the light and he held it up so they could see. She swung it in a circular motion it floated up into the air. She failed the first time to hook it to anything, and it came falling back and landed in the water with a _ploop_. 

She repeated the swinging for a second time and it hooked onto something. She tested her weight on it and it didn't budge. 

"Go first," she said to Krycek, who swam over to relieve any movement in his hip. He pulled himself up out of the water, which had lessened his weight gratefully. 

Krycek managed to climb three feet up before he had to use his legs. He pulled them up slowly, to avoid the pain he knew would come, but it was no use. Fire engulfed his body and clouded his brain; he let go of the wire and splashed back into the water. He twisted around and gasped for air. 

"Are you all right," Demona hovered close to Krycek. He blinked in pain and looked up at her from his icy heaven. 

"My hip," he muttered. Demona leaned down with her light stick and examined his hip. She fingered the small tear of his jeans and Krycek had to suppress which was ultimately, his body's reaction to a woman touching him. She resurfaced with somewhat of a flush, but Krycek thought better of commenting on it. 

"Nothing broken, nothing bleeding," she assured him. He nodded and let his weight off of his left leg, and looked forlornly at the escape wire. 

"Can you try again?" she asked. He nodded slightly, and moved to the wire. He pulled himself up out of the water, and when he moved his legs, the fire burned his body and he dropped back into the water. 

"I guess not," she said when he resurfaced. 

"Listen; go ahead and complete the mission," Krycek said, Demona nodded slowly with uncertainty. At least she had some loyalties to something. She climbed the escape wire, and Krycek was sure to get a good look at her smooth, sinewy muscles beneath her wet, tight jeans. 

She paused after she had climbed into the ventilation system: "Here is another light stick, it should burn for another hour. I can't guarantee any results after that. ...I'm sorry." 

"That you had to leave me," Krycek asked with some sympathy. 

"I'll come back for you," she assured him. She broke a light stick all the way and let the glowing liquid coat the area around her in the top of the vent so she could find it again. She wasn't sure whether or not it would take her an hour---her map was soaked through. She hoped it didn't. "---I promise." 

"Leave me," Krycek insisted; he surprised himself. He returned his eyes silently into the water. 

"I don't play your games, Krycek," her voice grated the air. "I'm coming back for you." 

All he could do was nod: he wasn't sure what he would have done if he had looked into her pained expression. She turned and left. Krycek felt something die; the sensation was throbbing. 

*** 

Demona hooked wire to where she left Krycek and hooked the spool to her left hip. It unraveled as she moved off in the direction where she thought the weapon would be. 

Alex Krycek's face haunted her as she moved away from him. She thought that maybe he was human after all; but he actually gave a damn for something more than himself. This was not like him, and this new Krycek that lay exposed at her feet was something she didn't know _how_ to respond to. 

She shook her head and traveled all the more swiftly down the ventilation tubes, testing each to see whether or not it was an office. She became disoriented with a couple of dead-enders, but she looked through one of the vent grates and looked down onto a lighted desk, which had a series of disks laid out in a Plexiglas box. This was the box she had come for in the first place. 

*** 

Krycek lay on his back, floating in the icy water. His breath swirled in the pit and he just barely saw it waft away from him. In his right hand, he clutched his silver-plated flask with vodka in it. He had been taking little sips ever since Demona had left; hoping it would keep him warm. It failed, but her enjoyed the tipsy feeling. He did feel a little twinge of something that he had carried vodka with him all the way to England. He usually saved it for homeland trips. 

He took another sip now, the liquid burning his cheeks, throat and tongue with passion, and he instinctively tilted his head back to savor the liquid. It was only then that he remembered why he shouldn't have done that. Icy water rushed over his forehead, up over his eyes and then into his nose. He coughed hard as the vodka slid down his gullet. 

He resumed his floating position after long moments and felt warmth in his body that he knew would come with the drink. His head throbbed angrily, but he ignored it with great difficulty. He closed his eyes and tried to relax as much as he could. Something whirred above him, and a few minutes later, air washed over his face---cold air. He swore angrily, the air worsened the pain the water created. This pit he was in felt colder than the Arctic. His breathing grew ragged in his throat as he took big gulps of air. 

He wanted to die; the pain was too great for him to bear. 

It looked like he was going to get his wish. 

*** 

Demona kicked open the grate that covered up the vent and it clattered open with metallic warning. She looked to see if anyone was in the room, but there was no sign of anyone. 

She slipped herself through the entire vent opening and hung from the lip of it for a moment, then dropped to the ground silently. She looked at the Plexiglas box and its mostly unmarked sides, except for a barcode and numbers. 

She slid a screwdriver from her boot. She put the slim edge to a crack in the box and pushed firmly on it. The box's lid split and cracked the lock into shame. With slow measure, Demona lifted the lid off and put her hand inside. 

She lifted out a simple black plastic box, heavy with fifty disks. She turned it over and over in the light. The light bounced off the black in harsh beauty. She opened the unlocked box and lifted out a fistful of black disks with numbers printed on the labels. 

She replaced the disks in the box and placed the box in a watertight bag and then into her pack. She placed the false box into the crate and placed the lid snugly back on. She ascended back into the ventilation system, replaced the grate of the vent and began to follow the guide wire. 

Now she had to get back to Krycek before it was too late. 

*** 

Krycek lay very still in the water. The green sickly glow still was in the air, sending wild shadows everywhere, but he didn't notice it. He could barely breathe, his clothes were heavy and soaked with water, and he was loosing his buoyancy as the water covered more of his body. 

Occasionally, when he opened his mouth to cough, some icy water spilled into it. He could barely manage a full-hearted cough; his throat was parched. He tried another swig of his flask, but it was bone dry. He tossed it aside and now it bobbed on the water ripples created by his sluggish movements. 

He closed his eyes. Was this it? Was this all Alex Krycek wrote? It couldn't be---he was too young...he still had too much to do to let this be the end. But there were too many things that he had done to keep on living. 

He was afraid, but it didn't register in his brain as much as it should have. It was a nagging emotion, poking and prodding at the back of his mind; it wasn't acute or bone chilling. The cold was starting to deaden his wits. 

Alex was so cold. The water swiftly numbed his fingers and his toes, but most of his extremities burned with the cold. The analgesic waters had not kindly deadened his everything; he was still able to think of the malevolent ache. 

He moved his arm, and much to his chagrin, pain pelted the appendage like exploding glass. He could hear the frost crackling at the movement. Alex could feel the trace amounts of ice upon his skin; a frost caused by his expiring heat, every passing second, he was getting colder. He reached up with great strain and agony and massaged his brow. His eyebrow hairs crackled as he broke the frost that caked them. 

He reached for his hairline and felt the ice frozen in his ruddy hair, he viciously rubbed it away. The pain of that chafing hurt his frozen arm, and he dropped it back into the water heavily, for the first time he wished he only had one arm to feel the pain in. Water showered onto his face, he blinked it out of his eyes and licked it from his cracked lips. 

His eyes felt so heavy, and he was so tired. Krycek tilted his head to the side and water covered the side of his face. It coated his one eye and filled his nostril and seeped into the side of his split lips. He returned his head to the center of his body and spit the water from his mouth to the air. It arced in the air and little droplets sprayed everywhere. It was kind of pretty. 

The cold had permeated every muscle and every bone in his body. It now passed freely through his body, and he only had a few hours---or mere minutes---left in this frozen shell. He knew the cold was affecting his brain. 

He began to let his mind wander completely around: the life of a spy was not an easy one. The life of a traitorous, hunted man was even harder. He could barely remember a day that went by that he had spent in comfort, without something of dark demeanor nagging for his attention. 

Fate. Krycek snorted. Fate was a poor man's religion and something Agent Mulder believed in. He never believed in fate, only a man's will. 

He had put himself in the wrong position at some point in his life, it was his fault, he admitted to that. It was probably when he told Spender he would join the Syndicate. He didn't agonize over it now; he had made the best of it; as he had made the best of every betrayal, clue, assignment and every person that he had to walk on. 

Krycek contemplated how much of a self-righteous bastard that he had become. He wondered when he was replaced by this new soul that he donned. He didn't know. It hurt too much to think. 

"Krycek!" 

The name called to him and sounded like a tape being played at slow speed. He opened his eyes with effort and looked up. He was expecting to see someone in the light, but there was no one claiming to own the voice. The voice called to him again and he closed his eyes. He didn't care to know what was out there, lurking and waiting for him. It could only be the devil, come to take him to Hell. 

*** 

"Krycek," Demona called a third time. Her stomach sunk: Krycek was dead. Now she had to bring his body back to the States and explain to more than one person why he had failed the mission, and how _she_ didn't kill him. 

But maybe she had. Maybe by leaving him here, she had signed his death warrant. She didn't like Krycek, but she felt even worse about leaving him for dead. She wasn't sure what to expect when she reached the edge of the vent. 

She felt like she had been punched in the stomach and the breath actually left her body. She looked at Krycek's body floating at the surface of the water. She was too late and he was dead. For a moment, guilt and pain washed over her, but she managed to push some of it away. She put on her best game face and lowered herself into the water. 

The coldness was a harsh shock it had gotten colder since she left, and she scolded herself for leaving Krycek in it. She waded to his lifeless form and placed a hand beneath his neck, lifting his head from the water. 

His head tilted back; unresponsive...she should have expected that. She feigned acute nausea looking over his cadaver; his lips were purple, and his skin was ashen. His clothes that were not underwater were coated with a thin layer of ice, and his hands were stiff and rigid with cold. There was no sign of breath escaping from his lips or nose. 

She took his hand and pulled him to her, and lifted him to get him out of this frosty grave. His body was unresponsive to her and she shuddered holding his dead body. She never really expected to have him dead in her arms, at the moment it was too malicious for her to actually enjoy as she said she would have. 

This was her fault. She could have done something to stop this and she hadn't. Tears stung her eyes as she looked over what was left of Alex Krycek. Guilt flooded over her. What would she tell the Syndicate? Would they think this was her fault? 

Suddenly, he took a deep and sucking breath and Demona nearly dropped him in shock. She was taken back, but then grabbed him before he could sink beneath the water, "Krycek!" 

"Can't get rid of that easily," his eyes fluttered open and he looked over her with tired orbs, he was exhausted. "You came back..." The words escaping from his frigid larynx were no more than a whisper. 

"I did," Demona felt relief well up inside her. She watched as a once dead man rose from a watery grave. Since he was out of the cold, he convulsed slightly. She pulled him close as she put a crude security harness around his waist. 

"So...so...so cold," his voice shook. She clipped him to her and made sure that he was secure. 

"We'll get you warm, I promise," she lifted Krycek and herself out of the water with the last strength that she had. Her reserves were almost gone; the cold was getting to her, too. She had to push and shove to fit them both into the tube side by side. 

Krycek clung to her and fed off her warmth greedily. She stripped of his wet jacket and left it behind, leaving a soggy airplane ticket, a gun and a cell phone with it. 

Demona was so blessedly warm to him, and he wrapped himself around her. She allowed him for the sake of hypothermia. He shook violently against her body; he begged for her warmth. 

His skin rose in goosebumps as his cover that he once had was pulled away. Krycek's teeth rattled in his head, threatening to shake his brains out. He nuzzled close to her, and Demona could feel his breath moistening her neck. It gave her the chills, but she let him keep as close to him as he wanted: she was probably saving his life. She fought the irrational discomfort that him being so close gave her. 

"You okay still, Krycek, getting warmer?" She stripped away his wet shirt and rubbed his skin to generate heat, he still shook with the chills. 

"Better," he assured her weakly. His voice was fluttering and Demona could tell that he was drifting in and out of consciousness. 

She checked his forehead, and felt the sweat; he was burning with a fever. She smoothed his bristly hair back from his face and examined it as best she could. His eyes were glassy and his lips had lost color. She placed his head back close to her, which lolled limply against her collarbone. 

Together they moved slowly and surely out of the vent system, this time taking a route that would get them directly outside. Krycek was soundless and offered as much help as he could, but it was not much. Demona heaved herself forward slowly and then, with limited strength, heaved him with her. 

He stood at least 6 feet tall and she guessed that he weighed about 175 pounds, which was a good fifty pounds heavier than she; but now being laden with water and immobile in a tight space made him feel like he weighed 300 pounds. 

She grunted with each tug she could muster. She figured that she couldn't take much more of this, and neither could Krycek by the way he groaned in pain. The chances of getting Krycek looked back to safety were looking bleak. 

Demona thought that she was going to faint from relief when slats of light pierced from the vents leading to the outside world. She gained new strength looking at the lights and heaved Krycek farther and longer with each pull as she approached the end of the vent. 

She pressed the side of her face to the vent in satisfaction, but withdrew sharply when her face stung angrily. She remembered when Krycek struck her. She pulled Krycek nearer to her and he could make no attempts to hold onto her for warmth, he just lay on her. She hoped he was getting his perverted thrills now, because it would never happen again. But, she was worried, he wasn't moving at all, and his breathing was shallow. 

She pushed once...twice...three times violently and finally, the vent fell away from where it had held fast. She looked out the vent and looked out into the parking lot where her rented Mercedes sat parked with only a handful of other cars. 

She slid away from Krycek and hung out of the open vent. Her legs dangling over one end and her hands locked under Krycek's armpits, she pulled herself down and dragged him to the end of the vent. Her feet felt like they were on fire as she hit the ground. With one final, full-of-effort pull, she heaved Krycek out and he tumbled onto hard-packed cobblestone. She swore at herself and she got down to help him to his feet. He shook with the new cold that blasted against his skin. 

"Once we get to my hotel room, we'll get you into some warm water, and you should warm up," she talked to him as if he were a child. The words didn't register to him at this point, for he was in a delirium. She brought him to his feet and supported him, where they stumbled to her car. She pushed him to the passenger side and then got in. She checked her pack for the disks, relief flooding her when she felt the plastic bag. She jammed the keys into the ignition and roared away from the warehouse. 

Into the night, she drove down back alleys and up to her hotel. Krycek's head lay on the closed window, lolling about with each curve in the road and each bump. He formed speechless words that faded in front of his face. Occasionally, his body wracked with a cough. Demona spared a moment to place a hand to his forehead, feeling it burning up. 

She managed with great effort to lift Krycek onto his feet and dragged him through the lobby of the hotel; he wasn't much help to her, either, his feet dragged and refused to support his weight. A few late-nighters were in the halls and shot her skeptical looks. 

"Party," she explained and they nodded; they probably knew nightlife all too well. Krycek played his role well enough, he looked so drunk that he could barely stand. It also explained her dark clothing to some extent---but not the fact that they were both soaking wet and Krycek was half-naked. 

She slid the keycard through the slot and they both fell into the room haphazardly. Demona's palms shot fire throughout her entire arms, and Krycek lay still, except for his hypothermic shaking. She was up as quickly as she had gone down and got blankets. She came back and remembered to turn the lights on. Right in the living room, she stripped him down to his underwear and she slid the blankets around him. She could feel the flush raise in her cheeks as she noted that Krycek did have a great body, despite the fact that his skin was purple with cold. 

She then lifted him to his feet and they stumbled to her bathroom, where she drew lukewarm water for him to soak in. 

He shivered violently against her body as they staggered into the bathroom. The colors swirled in front of Krycek's eyes, and he couldn't tell what was real or what was a dream. 

Demona stripped off the blankets, but left his boxers on to save herself a lot of embarrassment later. She worked as quickly as she could to keep him from dying. She then slipped him into the water, he was submersed to his ears, and his nose was just above the water. He shook in the water, rippling the edges like a stone in a pond. 

"Come on, Krycek, get warm," Demona begged, she rubbed his extremities vigorously in hopes that the blood would circulate to them. His skin slowly went from white to purple with splotches and then to a nice, rosy pink, but his fever remained. His fingers and toes threatened with frostbite, so she massaged them gently, pressing her fingers persistently between his. 

"Ouch...ouch," Krycek protested weakly as the feeling came back to his fingers and toes. He was submersed in water again, but this time it was warm water. He opened his eyes and looked out over himself, looking down he saw he only had his underwear on. He couldn't figure out where he was for he was so delirious. He could, however, feel gentle hands nursing and urging warmth into his body. 

"Krycek," someone whispered in his ear. He could only barely look up to see caring eyes peering into his own; he recognized the face, but he couldn't place a name to it. He closed his eyes and let the warm water warp around him protectively. The hand placed on his forehead was warm and soft; he breathed a sigh. "Alex, can you hear me?" He nodded in reply, which sent his head buzzing. 

"How are you feeling," Demona asked, but didn't expect an answer. 

"Not so good," he slurred; she supported him with the towels so he wouldn't drown. Moving swiftly, she went to her telephone. 

"Room service to Room 218. Chicken soup: and I want it scalding, do you understand?" The man on the other end assured her it would be there in a couple of minutes and she cut the connection. She looked in on Krycek and saw him twiddling his fingers on the arm hanging out of the tub. She added more water and left him again. 

Demona walked to the living room of the suite and opened her laptop. It flashed to life at her bidding---if only other things were so cooperative.... 

She opened a file on the disk. It was full of binary codes and HTML markups. "What have we here," she asked to no one in particular. "What have you gotten me into, Spender?" 

A knock on the door startled her. She slammed shut her laptop and removed the disk. She went to the door. 

"Room 218," the teenager asked. She nodded and took the tray. The attendant looked at her for a moment staring at her body, noticing she was soaking wet...and cold. Demona shot him and insulting look, and took the tray from him. After a moments thought, she dropped a tip into his hand. 

Demona moved to the bathroom and poked her head in. "Krycek," her voice was no more than a muted whisper. He turned to her slowly and looked at her with hollow eyes, mute with a feverish delirium. 

"It's time to get you out of there," she helped lift him out of the water and wrapped a towel around his damp skin, rubbing him warm and dry. She cocooned him with warm towels and blankets after she got him on the couch and left to find any clothes that she might have for him to wear. 

His fitful quaking had ceased, but now he shivered as he waited for Demona to return. How much had she given so that he wouldn't have died in a wet tomb? His hip angrily throbbed and he reclined his head back into the pillows, allowing the lights to stop their dancing. 

He caught sight of Demona and looked at how tired and weary she looked. The gash in her forehead made her look even more pained and fatigued. This image of the once sanguine woman who could even beat him was so different it unnerved him. She moved to him quietly, placing a soft hand on the side of his face. 

"I found a shirt and some large jeans in a hamper outside. Put them on," she helped him with mental distance wriggle into the pants, grunting as he moved his hip with pain, then sliding the t-shirt over his head. She then wrapped the blankets around him again, wrapping he extremities near him to keep his core temperature higher. She smiled at the fact that she had made a Krycek cocoon: maybe if she were lucky, he'd emerge a butterfly and fly away. 

"So what do we do now," he asked feebly. 

"_We_ don't do anything. You're still pretty fragile, you're body temperature is still low." 

She then offered out to him a bowl of warm broth that smelled dangerously good. With the gilded spoon, she spooned small amounts into his parched throat with the care of a mother. The blessed liquid slid down his throat more easily than the vodka had and warmed him better. Krycek allowed her to feel him as if he were a baby. 

She never expected to hear a "thank you" from Krycek for all that she had one to save his life: he was a self-assured and arrogant, and that didn't make for someone to admit he was thankful. She could never expect anything from him. She accepted it. She helped him finish off the soup and then watched as he drifted in and out of sleep. 

"You got the disks," Krycek's hoarse voice cut into the peace. Demona looked up at him as he lay on the couch with tired eyes. She nodded slowly; she would have offered a side comment, but she was too tired to argue with him, even though she'd win. 

"Thanks," he said. 

"Pardon me," the words dropped from her mouth like a stone. 

"I want to thank you for saving my life," Krycek repeated. He owed it to her. 

"It's okay," she replied slowly. She was unsure of the ice on which she was venturing. 

"Thank you anyway." He placed his head on the pillows and stared at the ceiling. "My hips still hurts." 

"I'll get you something," she stood up and teetered over to her bedroom. She tried to pretend that she was not tired and that she was all right. It didn't fool Krycek, but he refrained from saying anything to save her from embarrassment. 

She moved back to him with a syringe full of clear liquid. She rolled up his sleeve and paused. Krycek pounced on the opportunity: "Are you licensed to do this?" 

"No one's died yet," she replied slyly and pushed the needle into his arm. Krycek winced and turned away as he felt the pinching. "The pain should stop within fifteen minutes. But, you should get you hip x-rayed. I'm taking a shower and going to bed," she moved off and left Krycek alone on the couch. 

She closed the door of her bathroom and turned on the hot water. She watched the delicate steam rise and curl in the light. Her fingers trembled violently as she unlaced her boots and slipped them off her aching feet. 

She couldn't hold onto the zipper to unclasp the teeth that held her suit on her body, her fingers were shaking so badly. She took a deep breath and ran a nervous hand through her brown hair. She managed after more agitated movements to unzip her clothes and remove them from her body. She moved to the mirror and wiped away the steam with the flat of her hand and stared at her fogged-over complexion. 

She examined the bruises on her shoulder and hips and the gruesome cut on her forehead. She reached up to touch the swelled skin and withdrew. It was tender to the touch and she was sure it was going hurt like a bitch when she was under hot water. She ran a washcloth under water and dabbed at another minor cut on her chin, it stung and smeared red over the pristine white terrycloth. She didn't worry about the towel too much---she could always pay for it. 

She turned her back on herself and removed her remaining clothing. She stepped over them and then got into the shower. The hot water soothed her aches and pains, but she cringed and drew away as it stung her forehead. She shampooed her hair as carefully as possible, but cringed as the shampoo and blood from her forehead mingled, watching as the pink froth swirled angrily for a moment or two and then slid down the drain. 

Demona felt all the agonies that she had managed to subdue burst forth from where she had dammed them up in her brain. Her legs, once strong and supple, were now as weak as two pipe cleaners. She leaned heavily on the cold tiles in the shower stall and let everything flow away with the water. 

Her salty tears went undetected as the shower water ran down her forehead. Her choking sobs couldn't be heard as it had to compete with the water drumming furiously against the tile. 

The water was no longer the comforting cleanser she had aimed for it to be. It ripped at her skin and tore at her limbs, begging and beckoning for her to join them as they flowed to the sea. She wanted to join them, to escape from this harsh existence she was thrust in. 

She wanted the past eight years of her life to be just a nightmare that she could wake from, but also knew it was more than a nightmare...it was the misery of her reality. You can't wake from what is not a dream. 

Demona thought she was going to go insane, living all alone in her brain was beginning to take its toll. The protective fortress she built for herself was crumbling away to nothing; she was starting to walk down the road to Insanity. It was only a matter of time when she was going to shut down entirely. 

This was all The Syndicate's fault: and she still couldn't bring her entire self to forgive Nina for what hell she had put her through 

Demona wrapped a towel around her and entered her bedroom. The moon slipped through the curtains and stained her bed sheets a glistening white. She pulled on underwear and pajamas and slipped between the sheets. Staring out the window, she ebbed to a deep sleep. 

*** 

Krycek heard the water turn off in the bathroom and heard Demona moving in her bedroom. He was still slightly delirious from his fever and still a little cold, but on the whole, he was much better. 

He had lost any desires at stealing the disks where the lay on her desk, which he had planned before his near Kryceksicle episode. He had to admit that when Demona Launce was on business, she sure knew how to mix business with pleasure, he couldn't have chosen better himself. He actually hadn't bought himself a hotel room, he just expected to be let in to someone's house for the evening, as he liked to do. 

He mused over his near-death experience and paid it no more mind than he had any other near-death experiences. He was just grateful that he would rise to see another day pass from dawn to sunset again. He had survived; which is what he'd learned to excel at since joining the Syndicate. 

He stood up and walked about a bit: his hip was better, but he was still woozy from his fever. The painkillers had worked very nicely; he could at least walk now. He hobbled to Demona's desk and let his eyes pore over all the equipment; cell phones, phones and computers as one, a laptop, a digital camera and a PDA. Demona must have been a very thorough person when it came to work. Krycek carried little more than his wit and a good weapon when he trotted across the globe, Demona showed promising skills. 

For all her brashness and brooding silence, Demona was somewhat of a mystery: Krycek admitted to that. She hid something very dark beneath the chains of her mind, Krycek couldn't even guess as to what. It would only take time to pull away links to release the chains of her secrets. It would be easy, and Krycek was pretty certain that it could be done. 

He moved to her bedroom stealthily and gently pushed the door open. Much to his sweet relief, it didn't squeak to betray his presence. He didn't dare move or scarcely breathe; his only grip on the world was his fingertips grazing against the doorframe. He prayed to God that he didn't pass out in her bedroom. 

Krycek swallowed mightily, but he didn't move, he was frozen in his gaze at Demona. He looked aver her and her surroundings, he smiled seeing the handgun on the night table, she did seem to expect someone willing to kill her. 

She was dead to the world and dead to Krycek staring at her. She was totally relaxed and unassuming and innocent in her slumber. Her brown hair spilled out over the pillow like milk sliding over a marble table; her lips that were normally held in a vacuous frown were now open and smooth. Her thick lower lip moved ever so slowly as she murmured in her sleep. Her milky, Nordic skin looked luminescent in the anemic moonlight. It would have been so easy to kill her or take her right there. 

Krycek was a marble statue, unmoving; wanting to move but afraid to move. She was so unprotected in her sleep, so much looking in need of someone to be with her, to protect her dainty figure. He had a vague though of protecting her, though he knew he couldn't do it. 

He thrust his body to move towards her, but he remained paralyzed. He wanted to reach to her, to touch or to hold her, but he wouldn't shatter her peace. There were things to be said about falling in love with your co-workers, but somehow, it didn't apply here. Krycek wondered if it was falling in love, or just the fact that Demona was incredibly sexy. 

He only looked with misery at her, then turned and hobbled back to his couch. Sleep descended on him, and his mind was plagued with nightmares. 

*** 

Demona woke up the next morning disoriented in a room that was vaguely unfamiliar to her. It took her a few moments to actually wake up. She stretched and groaned, feeling all of her muscles unwillingly expand and contract. She yawned and the skin on her chin cracked painfully, she snapped her jaw shut. She touched her chin and withdrew as something wet and warm coated her fingertips---blood. 

She leaned back into the bed and stared at the ceiling. She remembered what lay beyond her door and on the couch; she didn't feel like going to face him. 

The emotional meltdown of last night was very disappointing. She felt extremely let down at herself; anything less than her hard shell was totally unacceptable. 

Avoiding the living room of the hotel room for the moment, Demona dressed herself. 

She ignored the cut for the moment and began to put on her clothes. She put on the beige pantyhose and slipped on the off-white shirt around her waist. She put on the white blouse and finished with the matching off-white dress jacket and high-heels. She put on pearl earrings and the five-strand pearl choker around her neck. She was ready to leave England as she had arrived---as an innocent, tight-assed businesswoman. 

She picked up the clothes from last night and packed them along with her clothes that she had brought over to England and packed them into her suitcase. She opened the bedroom door, took a deep breath and walked into the main room of her hotel. She turned on the coffeepot and began making something to wake herself up. 

A loud snort and grunt emanated from the couch and Demona jumped away from the coffee. A voice followed suit with her movement, "Who'zat?" 

"It's me. Krycek," Demona poured a cup of coffee. "You want some coffee?" 

"No," he replied hoarsely, "working off the drink I had last night." 

She moved across the room and sat down in a wicker chair across from him. "Leave it to you to find alcohol in the middle of a ventilation system." 

"So what," he asked harshly. 

"Makes no difference to me," she replied indignantly. She paused and took a gulp of her coffee. "How are you besides the hangover?" 

"Much better." 

"That's good to hear," Demona replied flatly. "Your hip?" 

"It's fine," Krycek assured her. "Probably just a strain or something." 

"Look, Krycek," she said with seriousness. "I know that we haven't always been on the best of terms since we first me. I understand how you feel about me horning in on your glory with the Syndicate. That's not the case. I just want you to know that my conduct in your apartment was inappropriate. It's not an excuse: it's fact. Just understand that I am sorry for that." 

Krycek didn't respond immediately. As long as she knew why he hadn't approved of her in the beginning, there was no reason for him to hate her blindly. ---It wasn't even that he hated her, it was resentment. It felt good that they had reached a somewhat level ground---they didn't have to be best friends, they just needed that understanding. 

"I accept that. As long as we understand our ground?" 

Demona nodded. "I'm not asking for you to be my friend---or even to like me. Just understand that I am every part of the Syndicate as you are." 

Krycek could pass with that. He looked at her new outfit and dignified posture; she almost passed for a lady. "Where are you going?" 

She sipped her coffee nonchalantly as if she hadn't heard him. She began, as he was about to ask her again; "Back to the United States; I have to give Spender the disks." She stood up and placed the empty cup on the table; she then moved to her suitcases. 

"Hey," he recovered from his hangover and moment of sensitivity quickly, "are you just going to leave me here?" 

She sighed and moved to the desk at which she was working last night. She looked through her lock box and pulled out a large roll of bills. She then moved back to the couch and dropped the roll into his lap. 

"Here is four thousand dollars cash---enough money to buy a plane ticket back to Washington DC, a new set of clothes, and enough money to stay in this hotel for two more nights. You might even have enough to put in your pockets afterwards." 

He rolled the money in his and smelled the fresh, new ink; he loved the smell of fresh, unadulterated money. He should have left it at that, but he picked at the scab. "What about a gun and a phone, I lost them both last night." 

Demona's eyes grew dark and stormy but her eyes betrayed nothing, "I have a gun and I will leave it to you. With the money, maybe you could get a cheap phone and a good deal on roaming charges." 

She tossed the gun and clips of ammunition in his direction. He caught them skillfully and set them on the table. 

She packed the hardware from the desk to a carryon bag and she placed the disks in a UN Security bag ignoring Krycek for the majority. Anyone of Customs in their right mind would not open a UN Security bag and thus open the bowels of hell with plague and pestilence on their descendants. 

Krycek watched as she picked up the suitcase, the carryon and the pouch. "See you in the States, Krycek---and good luck." She closed the door behind her. 

"Gee thanks," Krycek murmured, holding the gun and the clips. He would meet up with her later, he was sure of it. 

-End-

   [1]: mailto:TrekPhile47@hotmail.com



	4. Voyage Home

Voyage Home

Disclaimer: Alex Krycek does not belong to me, he is Chris Carter's and 1013's. No infringement intended.

Spoiler: "En Ami"

Keywords, Angst, Violence

Archive: Only with written consent of the author; [TrekPhile47@hotmail.com][1]

***

No matter what people say, there is no way to stop time. It marches on like a parade into the Universe. 

You can't stop people from doing..._things_. People aren't sheep (despite popular simile); you can't herd them into the subconscious disbelief of the Truth. The Truth is out there and sheeple are bound to find it. Suppressing the quote, unquote Natural Selection of people into the hierarchy of knowledge is impossible. Some learn, some won't. You needn't worry about those who don't know: you worry about those who do, worry about those who are unhappy with their "comfortable" world. 

Those who poke out of their cocoon into the unnatural world are a danger. They are a danger and a threat to themselves, to the others in the cocoons and to Nature, who protects the cocoons. 

They must be stopped. 

***

Here Demona Launce was again, like a sheep out towards the herder, looking at the ominous shears without any way to stop herself. She was about to get everything comfortable ripped from her body and sold at auction. 

The airport in Moscow, Russia was like she had stepped into Foreign America. As if there was such a place. 

If not, then this place was a freakshow of its hopeless own. The McDonalds, the Pizza Huts, the bookstores, the map shops, the car rental booths despite the Russian scrawl, was highly American. Things had changed a lot since she had left it. "Changed" not being used affectionately. 

Her assignment was shady-again. She got a little bit of notes and a ticket. It had been...three months since Demona had come back from England. She had gotten paid, and patted on the back for a job well done, then patted on the head and told to run along. 

Run along. There was nowhere to run to, unless Personal Hell counted. 

There were so many plusses to being 007/Secret Agent/Rambo-in-a-female-body: gun toting was one of them, incredible sex life was another (though she hadn't had time for any action); but dressing-for-sabotage/success was not. If there were anything she would have changed, she would have just shot kneecaps to keep the cops from running after her instead of having to outsmart them. She needed more physical activities than stratagem that introverted her. 

She could barely move in the stiletto heels to go with the blond wig and corseted business suit to make her look slim and Aryan. Damn curves. She appreciated having a busty figure, but having them smashed flat against her ribs was painful and made it difficult to breathe. She fought her way through the crowds viciously, wobbling on her heels and body feeling like it was being smothered by and anaconda. 

Custom's Desk was the center for the most ignorant people who ever walked the earth and were allowed to have a job. Demona got stuck with a pimply teenager who kept staring at her chest despite the fact she was cut down two full cup sizes. 

She held out her passport: Greta Klaus, German businesswoman. Business in Russia? Business, of course. She smiled broadly to the man working the desk and received a cheeky wink. She wasn't in Russia twenty minutes and she was already charming the natives. 

"Do you have anything in your bag that might be illegal?" Maybe if you consider computers, makeup and clothing (though maybe the Sauer could be...nah). They did the whole Customs song-and-dance; each question received a clipped, Russian-with-German-accent response. That seemed to impress the teenager, he got one final look at her chest before he handed back her passport and papers. 

The turntable was crowded and all the people fought like animals to get their luggage quicker than everyone else could. If Demona had some breath in her lungs and wasn't so knocked out with Dramamine, she would have wielded her sharp nails in someone's eye. Maybe she _should_ switch to shooting kneecaps. 

Her bags occupied a dolly that someone had left unattended mishappenly. She wouldn't have minded using the thing as a makeshift scooter to relieve the pain in her feet that was slowly spreading up to her lower back. What would that look like? She was sure to be apprehended by _someone_ doing that. She thought better of it and moved to rent a car and the hotel she had reservations at. 

No one who watches spy movies ever thinks of procuring hotels and rental cars. Usually they just magically appear and the hero gets in, gets the girl and drives into the cardboard sunset. If only that were true: if only Demona didn't have to deal with rentals people and hotel clerks. Really, all she needed to do was show up and give her name; The Syndicate had twisted arms and pushed buttons well enough to get what she needed. And still, she wished that site to site transport was possible. 

__

Vitaly.

The thought hit her out of nowhere and for a moment, she couldn't breathe. She was drawn to the name; she had to know what had happened to him. She wanted to run to him, to fall into his arms, to love him again. 

But she had promised. 

She couldn't---_wouldn't_ go see him. She had left her past behind her; it was no longer help, it was hindrance. 

The hotel was on the edge of a small town on the outskirts of Moscow. It wasn't too dumpy, but it wasn't four-star either. She parked her car in the only remaining spot and took her luggage in with her to the lobby. 

"Demona Launce checking in," she said to the woman working the desk. "I have a reservation?" 

"Demona Launce...oh, yes, you do. Room 47," she handed Demona a key. "Have a nice stay." 

Demona didn't comment back despite the fact that she really wanted to spew how miserable this trip could get. She got into the elevator and sagged against the wall to relive the stabbing pain in her back. Opening the door was also a treat; she nearly fell through it and into the room with the weight of her bags. If she had, she would have just lain there until someone found her and thought she was dead. 

Demona's heart nearly stopped when she saw someone sitting on the sofa in the room. He looked at her with flickers of amusement playing across his face. He stood and addressed her, "My, my, Demona. Tell me; do blondes have more fun?" 

"Watch your mouth Krycek, or you'll be pulling that glass out of a place you can't easily reach," she said. Demona had to admit that there was a reason why she had to bite her lip every time she saw him: his hair was cut shorter than she had last seen it, close to his head, revealing the scar along his forehead. In his left lobe, a diamond stud sparkled in the Russian sun. His clothes weren't too terribly shabby; he wore form-fitting jeans, black leather boots, a white t-shirt and a black knit sweater. Demona swallowed her emotions and hardened her voice into titanium, "What are you doing in here?" 

"Don't worry, I'm house trained," Krycek shot back with snide. 

"That's not what I meant," Demona snapped. "What are you doing in _my_ room?" 

"_Your_ room. I thought we were sharing," Krycek mock-pouted. 

"Did I just hear you correctly?" 

Krycek rolled his eyes, disdain clearly soaked through his features, "Let me explain: we have to share because there aren't any other vacancies. I don't know anything other than that." 

Demona shrugged any thoughts she had thought of voicing, and glared at him through her green mercury eyes. After receiving nothing in return to further provoke her, she sighed angrily and looked ultimately defeated; it hung her shoulders. 

Krycek and Demona stood in silence as they each sized one another up. Krycek still rubbed at his left earlobe---it must have gotten infected---and Demona scratched her head where the wig itched her scalp. Neither of them said anything---neither knew what to say. 

Demona looked almost beautiful in her outfit, though it was visible that she was uncomfortable beneath what could only be seen as corset. He thought her chest looked a little...flat; usually he enjoyed the eye candy, but his sweet tooth had been deprived. She met his ogling gaze with one of her own and both looked equally sheepish. 

"I'm changing clothes," Demona remarked and picked up her suitcase. The door nearly rattled off its hinges. 

Alex stood there like an idiot, watching the door slam shut in his face. He then stared down at his right hand as he absently turned the diamond stud in his ear. He liked the new attachment to his body. 

He listened to the water running in the bathroom and could imagine what Demona was doing in there. Washing away the makeup that she had used to cover herself for days, pulling off the blond wig that made her look like some Germanic goddess. Shedding the clothes that hindered her flowing curves...he didn't let himself dwell on that any more than that, God only knew what his body was reflecting of his fantasies. 

Demona had this wily way on his mind. It was almost like she was begging him to come and get her, but he always got the mental stiff arm in his chest when he dared approach her. It was too hard for him to deal with his feelings (or no feelings) when it came to Demona. It was easier to let the sleeping love lie. 

After he'd returned from London, he just barely managed to make it to his Washington DC apartment after going out and getting himself piss-drunk. He stumbled through the door and passed out, and then woke up about a day later with the mother of all hangovers from his drinking binge (which really was a waste of money seeing as drinks were only good in moderation and completely wasted when he had fun with them). He spent the next week or so calling old haunts, spending the night on people's couches, not willing or wanting to stay in his rathole (no pun intended). 

He came back to America and found a necking partner for a night to relieve his sexual frustrations. Acting out on repressed sexual energy was Freudian-but of course, most of America's mentality would have received Freud to be a god. Sometimes, the impersonal sex was so much better than sex with someone (he thought) he was in love with. That was three strikes against his thinking of going for Demona. 

Next batter. 

The call had come; and he knew it was only a matter of time. Along with his assignment, he'd also received a tongue lashing on how foolish his actions were. He blew them off, as usual. He nearly choked on his own tongue when he found out he was going to be working with Demona again. But after everything that The Syndicate had already done to screw his life up by using Demona, he shouldn't have been surprised. 

Spender regarded Krycek still with the same regards as always: dispensable. It wasn't like the Spender thought; they didn't screw in England. But wouldn't Spender have liked that? God only knows how Spender would have used it against him, more of a reason to scorn him. Or perhaps, it was that Spender was jealous of him, which would have made true his first statement he ever uttered of Demona to Spender. 

So he was here now, in a hotel room, with Demona in the bathroom, and he could have something to use in a fight against Spender. He had material that could enable him to win. 

If only they lived through this. 

***

Demona could finally breathe now that the corset lay in a heap in the corner of the bathroom. She had become giddy from near-asphyxiation now that she could take full breaths and she clung to the side of the sink, trying to keep her brain from furling around things she couldn't fathom. She washed the last bit of makeup off of her face, watching as mascara ran down the drain. She couldn't stop thinking about going back to Krycek. They may have reached some sort of agreement when it came to partnership, but there had been nothing abut living with him...even temporarily. 

She pulled a shirt over her head and jeans over her hips. She pulled her brown hair back into an old rubber band. She packed up her disguise and opened the door of the bathroom and went into the main room. 

It was cramped. There was one bed (king size), a table with three chairs, a TV, a bathroom, an armoire, and a nubby old couch. Krycek sat on the couch, staring out the window, his back to her. Demona chose her steps carefully as she moved to his side. Her small hand touched his shoulder to gain his attention. She gasped and snatched her hand back as he flinched. His eyes were prairies green and wavered in the breezes of his mind. 

Uncomfortable silence filled the room, avoiding the only apparent question: who got the bed? They'd burn that bridge when they came to it. 

"We leave tonight," Krycek noted. "There is a club that's popular, people like to hit it for the booze and the like. We're hoping that it will be the site for some Oilien transaction." 

"I read The Syndicate's folder, but they don't describe Oil all that well." 

"Purely a precaution; only the scientists have the hard evidence. You know that it is the conscious life-blood of the Grey Aliens, and has certain...mind-controlling abilities. Before, upon leaving the victim, it caused radiation burns and death. It has adapted to the environment and now it's just trying to get home. As of late, it has gotten out of Syndicate hands by a leak." 

"Could that leak be you," Demona asked, raising an eyebrow quizzically. The look was inviting. 

Krycek declined the invitation, remembering the feel of getting thrown for a complete loop. "An informant knows that it is in Russia, but declined to say where to save his own life. ...Someone thought it would be great fun to use it as a narcotic and its been laced with drugs; mainly heroin and acid. For them, I suppose it's a cheap high." 

"And when it's not laced with drugs?" 

"It's hell. If you ever know what it is like to burn alive and then to feel all of your limbs move without your consent and your mind is no longer your own: that it the 'high' of which I am speaking." 

Demona looked at Krycek, staring at his darkening features. There was something beneath what Krycek was saying, that indicated absolute fear of the Black Cancer. Was it fear that came with respect and experience? Perhaps. It would take digging and some decent tools to work with, but Demona could understand where perhaps Krycek was coming from. 

He continued, unfettered by his obvious discomfort, "The Oilien rapes your mind, it takes you apart, ripping everything you had buried in closets out into the open. It shows you the things that you hated in yourself, and makes you hate yourself more. It cares nothing for your safety or sanity...it only wants to go home." 

Demona stood there agape. "It infected you..." 

Krycek nodded, "I know what it's like to have everything in your brain ripped completely to pieces; I know what it's like to get my body completely ripped away from me." 

"I didn't mean..." 

"No," Krycek held up a hand, "if anything, dragging you into this whole thing up here and now was a mistake." 

Demona stared at him and shook her head slowly. "And when were you going to tell me? ...The risks don't outweigh getting the Oilien?" 

"Of course not, we are sheep to the Syndicate. We are easily expendable. If we die...well, we die." 

"Pleasant thought," Demona noted dourly. 

Krycek only shrugged, "You obviously didn't read the contract when they signed you on." 

Demona just looked at him, painfully silent as she knew the truth. 

***

The night was long as Krycek lay awake listening to Demona breathing in her sleep. The last time he'd seen her sleep, she was seemingly healthy, but something must have happened since then. She lay curled up in a fetal ball in one corner of the bed (which she ended up getting because she won the coin toss), her knees hugged as close to her chest as naturally possible. 

Krycek sat on the couch, resisting the urge to touch her milky marble face, but there was no reason to kill the serenity. He thought of how much it actually hurt for him to look her in the face. Somehow, it felt like failure to his manhood. 

He knew the sour taste of failure, much like the taste of eating shit when he'd royally screwed up. He took a sighing breath and adjusted himself on the couch. The simple fact of it was was that he could not keep his mind off of her, and his heart wrenched in two different directions whenever he looked at her. That hurt---a lot. 

Demona murmured something in her sleep that sounded like, "Sweet lopsided Yorkies" and rolled over to catch more Z's. 

__

Failure is not an option.

Spender may have been wrong about that statement in their first assignment, but not now. It didn't take a genius to know how screwed the whole world would be if the Oilien was still being used as a drug and could wander freely. Hell, it was amazing that the damn stuff hadn't multiplied in all the hosts it had been welcomed into. 

And he still wondered who'd passed the "fun" on. 

He was pretty sure it wasn't him. He'd only had it in him for about two days or so, then it all went into the Grey's ship. He really couldn't tell the truth about it, anyway, he was conked out for the entire ride. It could have been him, or Mulder, or Spender, or.... Hell, it could have been anyone who came in contact with the damn stuff. Krycek didn't know all the answers (despite the fact he claimed to); he didn't know if Oil could choose to lay dormant or not. He didn't know how Oiliens behaved in their unearthly ways. 

Damn space rock. 

That was stretching places to put the blame on. Really stretching. Krycek wasn't there when the world was being bombarded by planetary fragments, humans were still probably a glimmer in Evolution's flinty little eye, so he couldn't have stood there with a baseball bat, whacking all the little space chunks back where they came from. 

The only way things felt better about this whole Oilien mess was to lay the blame on Spender. He was always the proverbial target, never around to atone for himself (though never there to defend himself, either). Spender had left him to die in the missile silo, and hadn't actually _handed_ him his new arm. If anyone, Spender was the scapegoat, too easy to put all the sins of the community on his head and send him out into the minefield. 

Krycek shook his head sadly and then settled it on the upholstered wood of the couch, feeling something solidly real against what was his dreamy nightmare. 

***

The evening was cool against Demona's bare arms as she walked down the long street at Krycek's side. She saw a prostitute on the corner on the street, working on a cigarette and balancing on her high heels. It was only about four years ago when Demona herself would have been one of the women standing on the corner with her lips too red and her skirt too short. Demona stopped entirely and stared at the child, receiving only a blank, haunting and painful stare back. 

"You okay," Krycek asked as his hand cupped her bare arm, leading her away from the street wife. 

"Just thought I lost a heel," she lied as she fell into step with him again. 

The club was a new techno club that had been inspired by the likes of raves in America. Demona's newly dyed, vibrantly red hair had been unsettling at first, but Krycek liked the way it brought out the green of her eyes. Of course, he didn't say anything about it. 

Getting in was easy enough, all Demona had to do was use her womanly wiles and Krycek just hung around like her arm decoration. It was easier than the Homecoming queen on prom night. 

"We should split up," Krycek shouted above the din of the roaring techno music. Demona nodded although she wasn't too sure of what she had heard. "If you get information, contact me." She nodded again and moved through the club, and in the crowd, she lost Krycek. 

People moved to loud music in a rain of colors from the lights, each trying to forget the problems that they had left at the door. The music blared above the din of the crowds, rattling the furniture at the bar and making the catwalks where people looked down sway and move precariously. 

The smell was typical of all the nightclubs: it smelled like people's after-hours activities. She knew the acrid smell of acid and crack, all of which mingled with thick smoke from cigarettes. Pungent alcohol odors added on top of the smell of heavy sweat and cheap perfume. Cigarette smoke lingered in the air, creating a fine mist of mysticism and intrigue. 

She moved slowly through the club, choosing her steps carefully. She didn't want to dance, she just wanted to sit at the bar and gain information. Through the corner of her eye, she saw Krycek working his way slowly through the dance crowd with women trailing him like goslings behind their mother. She followed the side of the dance floor to the bar, where a bartender smiled as he scooped a Jell-O shot for an expectant customer with problems written on his features. 

There was a man sitting on a barstool next to her with dark eyes and brooding features. He looked like he'd seen his days of drugs, as that his eyes were red and bloodshot. Demona nodded cordially at him and sat on a stool, shifting herself in her tight leather pants. The man next to her stared at her intently. 

"I absolutely love this club," she gushed with a throaty voice, "I love the night. This club has the right atmosphere for nighthawks like myself," she attempted. The bartender gave her a complimentary screwdriver, and she stirred it almost lazily with the tip of her finger. 

"Really? I haven't seen you around here before: how long have _you_ been here?" His voice was harsh and scratchy, which made him sound like he'd been yelling all night. The way it grated against her unnerved her. 

"I actually just came in tonight," she noted with a shrug that covered up her recovery from the folly. 

"I'm surprised I haven't seen you before, I never forget a beautiful face," he replied factually as if he was giving notes. She was amazed at how straightforward he was. It looked as though if he had any information, he'd tell it to her willingly. 

"Thank you," she replied. She continued sipping at her drink, then decided to chance whatever would come her way: "I don't know about you, but _I_ need a little high. I heard that these people are handing out a black drug. I can't think of what it's called, though." 

"You might be talking about Oil. It's a great drug: you inject yourself with it, and a couple of days later, you wake up twenty...maybe fifty miles away from Nowhere." 

She could feel her face drain of all its color, "Really?" 

"Honest," he said, raising his hand to attest. "But, it is very expensive, the supply is reduced because of the tiny store that was found." 

"Damn," she muttered in play and in truth, taking a sip of her drink. 

The man looked at her for a moment and then spoke up, "You know, you do look a little familiar: what might your name be? You look like an Elka or a Nina." 

Demona winced involuntarily at the name, some grudges were hard to drop, "My name is Yulianna." 

"Then maybe I _haven't_ seen you. ...By the way, I'm Ruslan," he replied as smoothly at the beer cupped in his palm looked. 

Demona scrutinized him, and then seemed pleased with what she saw, although his demeanor betrayed something about him that he could have been hiding. He seemed too dark and brooding to be at a bar to look for women. 

"Shall we dance?" Ruslan took her by the wrist with what was almost force and lead her out onto the dance floor. Demona was forced up against Ruslan's body because of the other people dancing in such a small space. For a song, Demona moved to the same movements that the rest of the crowd was, and she could feel the beads of sweat dripping down the back of her neck and one dripping down her chest. Ruslan seemed to have concentrated on that bead of sweat, and took it as an opportunity. Purposefully, he moved his hands to her waist, to her hips, then to her backside, where he rested his huge palms. Demona shifted uncomfortably, but she didn't vocalize anything. 

It was involuntary, but she dipped her hips low to tease him and she could hear the small but definite groan as she did it. He dipped his head low into her neck, biting the flesh as she threw her head back and exposed the delicate flesh for more abuse. The blinding lights of the nightclub nearly added to her intoxication. She could feel Ruslan's hands tracing up her back and then around to her chest.... 

"Not yet," she noted gently in a moment of hindsight clarity, but led his hands back to her behind in which he seemed satisfied with. For the next to songs, Demona hovered her torso close to his to get him to place male trust in her, with her own discomfort growing inside her like a stormcloud. 

As she rested her head on Ruslan's chest for a moment, the corner of her eye caught Krycek skulking around the edges of the crowd looking from her to the different women he toted around on his arm. For some reason, Demona flushed like with the embarrassment that she was acting out of the same reason why she hung out in clubs all those years ago when she had been a whore. Ruslan noticed she had stopped moving, "You know that guy?" 

"He's uh...a business partner," Demona admitted. 

"Oh? Were you two a thing at one time?" 

Demona couldn't help laughing, it was too funny for her to have kept inside. Ruslan looked puzzled at her laughter, so she humored him: "Hell no. He's just...he...we don't get along very well." 

"Good enough reason," Ruslan pointed. "Come on, you seem so tense, Yulianna. You should loosen up." 

__

Loosen up? In one brief flash, she realized what she had really wanted from Ruslan: she wanted him to abuse her with his sex, not Oil. She stunned herself. "I..." 

"Did I say something," Ruslan asked gently, touching her face tentatively. 

"What? Oh, no, Ruslan, you didn't. I'm sorry, I've just been out of it lately," she said. "...So, Ruslan, where might I get Oil?" 

"Lots of places. The back alley down here has one or two people who sell it, but that's risky black-market---too many cops are starting to wise up to it. But, you get two miles out of Moscow and people sell it like advice. The biggest guy who sells it works out of a back room here at this club," his fingers flicked at her lips, almost trying to memorize them. 

"Who," she asked, ignoring the roughness of his persistent fingers. 

Ruslan shrugged, neither indicating nor declining himself. 

"I think maybe you should take me to see him," Demona requested. 

Ruslan cocked his head and gave her a small, innocent smile. He leaned his head down towards her and she accepted him. His lips were as rough as they had betrayed. Demona couldn't stop him from flicking his tongue into her mouth. It was Isaac all over again; it was everything from her days of prostitution. She moaned and tried to break away from Ruslan, trying to break away from the memories and the possible future. "I can't..." 

Ruslan's demeanor changed drastically and he grabbed her wrist and yanked her sharply towards the door of the club, "Come on, Yulianna. You and I are leaving." 

"Let go," she insisted and tried to dig her heels into the wax-slicked floor, but her chunky sandals refused to give her any traction. She tried to shake herself out of Ruslan's grip, but it was like a vice, and she could feel her wrist bones being grated against one another harshly, each screaming in protest. "What are you doing," she shouted, but her voice was nothing more that muted tones as the music interfered with her throat and shouldn't hear it. She tried to scream but it caught in her throat. 

In a sudden moment, Ruslan became enraged and impatient with her fruitless struggles, his arm wrapped around her midsection and he lifted her from the ground. She screamed out again, but his hand clamped over her face, smothering her nose and mouth. She couldn't breathe, and she felt sick as he squeezed the life out of her. 

He dragged her to a small room in the back of the club that was an addition outside the building put up on wooden and concrete stilts. It reeked of dead things and defecation. The music still pounded through the thin walls, making Demona's brain shatter inside her skull. Ruslan closed the door behind them as he dropped her to the ground. When Demona regained her footing, she whirled on him to punch him in the jaw, but he caught her fist effortlessly. 

"What are you doing?" 

"You said you wanted Oil. I'm going to give you some," he said. He pulled a little vial out of his pocket. 

"You're the dealer," Demona realized in another moment of clarity as she tried to pull away, "Let me go!" 

"I can't let you get away," Ruslan pointed out demonically. "I need you." 

"You're hurting me," she cried out. 

"You won't feel a thing soon, Yulianna. Trust me." 

"You're going to infect me," she intoned harshly. "Are you going to rape me senseless before or after?" 

"It all depends." 

"I swear to God: you touch me with that and I'll scream." 

"You open your mouth and _I_ swear that you wont have time to scream." 

***

Krycek broke away from the woman he was dancing with and turned his head back to where he last saw Demona, but she had disappeared. Whomever she was with was gone, also. 

Great, they were on assignment, and Demona had disappeared. He was a little worried that she hadn't alerted him like he had told her to. He began to edge through the people, looking as to where she might have gone. 

The thundering music was interfering with his brain; he could barely think when he had to compete with the techno music. He growled angrily and moved to the edge of the crowd. 

His eyes caught movement that wasn't customary of a dance crowd. The people moved together in waves, making themselves all looked the same. There were two people who didn't move with the crowd: they moved in a halting, jagged line. He couldn't be sure, but the flash of red hair looked familiar, and so did the man across from it. 

He strained against the throngs of people, trying to get a better look. He heard the scream just barely noticeable above the din. Alex then saw the body attached to the scream. 

He watched in horrible helpless nightmare as Demona was being dragged off in the arms of a man twice her size. She tried to fight him, but it wasn't working all that well. His hand was clamped over her mouth and he moved with incredible speed as she opened her mouth to scream again. 

Alex wasn't large by any means, he didn't have any particular look that could part the masses; but somehow, he had passed through the group of dancing people as if time had stood still. He didn't look back to see if he had knocked anyone over, he didn't have the time. By the way things looked, neither did Demona. 

Demona and her friend were gone by the time he got to the door, as he'd figured that they would be. He opened the door gingerly, afraid that the hulk was waiting for him on the other side. The hall was empty. "Demona," he called out in a voice that nearly broke on worry. He wasn't too sure if Demona could get out of the mess that she had gotten herself into, but it was very likely that she couldn't have heard him anyway. Even though the ground shook beneath him, ready to give way, but he pounded down it anyway at breakneck speed, his boots barely able to clink to the worn wood. 

The long hallway took a twist that led to a door. The door was shut and locked. 

It didn't take a genius to figure out this plot twist. Krycek reached for his gun, pulling "Old Betsy" out of the shoulder holster beneath his leather jacket. The cold metal stuck to his hot and sweaty skin. Calming his heart gave him the seconds he needed to clear out his mind. 

He was so dead if The Syndicate found out Demona was killed because he'd let it happen. 

He pressed his ear to the door, listening to the words inside. The club music interfered, but her could get snippets. _"...You won't have time to scream."_

As Krycek went to kick in the door, he heard Demona make one last cry to perhaps make her presence known. It was strangled and shut of sharply. 

The door gave way with only a single viscous kick. It flew away from Krycek where the doorknob lodged into the plaster wall. 

The man who was with Demona looked ultimately shocked, but still kept a grip on Demona's neck, "You come near her, man, and I'll kill her. All I have to do is squeeze." Demona's eyes were starting to grow as cloudy as a corpse's, and her fingers worked diligently, trying to pry Ruslan's away from her throat. 

"You want to compete with the gun," Krycek asked, leveling the barrel at Ruslan's chest. "Put her down and nothing bad is going to happen to you." 

Ruslan seemed to understand the way Krycek was thinking-and second-guessed him, "I got it figured, man: I knew someone was going to be coming for my operation. I knew the way this one looked at you: you two worked for each other, the 'American sting'. I'm not going out this way, this is the best power I have ever known." 

"I'm not here to step on your glory," Krycek replied with a pitying voice he had learned in the FBI (sometimes his past did come in handy), "just leave Demona out of it." 

"Demona? That's this bitch's real name? Not a very good fake name, _Yulianna_."

Demona's eyes fluttered shut either in pain or in realization of stupidity. "Demona, stay awake," Krycek ordered. 

"Krycek," she choked, "he's...got...the...Oil---" her voice was cut off as Ruslan jerked his fist closed and then open again. Demona went into a fit of coughing and her fingers were involuntarily persistent in trying to free herself. 

Krycek nodded slowly and inched forward slowly on the balls of his feet, "I don't care about the Oil, man. Just give me back my partner." 

"I can't do that," Ruslan said quietly, "I need a guinea pig: I can't get them all that easily anymore." 

"What did you put in the Oil this time?" 

"Nothing: this is pure," Ruslan said, holding the vial in between his thumb and forefinger. "In the beginning, I laced it with cocaine to take the 'edge' off. I won't test it pure; I'm not screwing myself over like that." 

"If you don't put her down, I _will_ shoot you," Krycek affirmed. 

"Who are you? The goddamned cops?" 

"You could say that," Krycek admitted. "Demona, you still with me?" 

She choked back in reply. 

"I'll kill her, I swear to God," Ruslan held the vial above her head and the knuckles of his other hand whitened in anticipation. 

"You won't," Krycek assured him. As he moved closer surreptitiously, the floor creaked beneath him heavily. 

Ruslan's eyes shot open in anger and as he went to break Demona's neck. Krycek didn't even think as he fired the gun into Ruslan. It packed a pretty powerful punch, and he could feel the kickback in his hand. Ruslan's chest puckered with blood and his fist released its hold on Demona's throat. She fell to the floor and tried to take deep breaths, but she slipped into unconsciousness. 

Ruslan made a final attempt on Alex, lunging at him even through his blood and pain. Krycek didn't have time to think, much less pull the trigger again. Ruslan jumped on him, pulling into him into a deadly embrace. Alex could feel the gunshot as someone fired the gun. He couldn't have been sure as to whom: Ruslan hand wrapped his hand around Krycek's. He could only feel the pain as the gun kicked back into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. They both fell to the floor---

And through it. 

The whole floor collapsed beneath all three of them, not able to support their fracas. Krycek felt the stars as he and the heavy corpse hit the ground of the alley. The crates that splintered beneath him cushioned his fall (sort of), and he lay on the ground, temporarily stunned and bleeding from the nose Ruslan had got a good hit on before he died. The crates splintered edges dug sharply into his back, poking through the meat of his ribs, even through the new leather jacket. The beer cans in the crates supported his bleeding head. 

Demona regained consciousness only to feel the floor collapse beneath her, and then the air that rushed up against her. She hit the floor face first and felt like her chest had collapsed. She couldn't breathe, and she wished desperately that she was unconscious, but she couldn't be so lucky. The liquid beneath her was warm, and she figured that she was bleeding. Weakly, she raised her head and looked at the puddles that were beneath her and covered her clothing. She brought some of the liquid close to her nose and sniffed it. It had no odor, so it couldn't have been blood, but it was too dark for her to discern exactly what it was. 

Krycek shook his head as he regained consciousness slowly. His stomach hurt, although her felt around with his fingers and affirmed that he hadn't been shot like he'd supposed. He felt the oil that pooled gently on his face, kissing as his scratches: he flicked it away and sat up. He stared at Demona, who was looking extremely perplexed as she watched the puddle of oil swell and contrast on her fingertips, but she couldn't do anything. _Oh shit,_ Krycek screamed in his head, _he kept the Oil here!_

"Get up! Get it off you! Get away from it!" he shouted and struggled to stand. His sprained ankle and wrenched hip prevented him from doing anything as he watched Demona from only a few feet away. 

Demona watched with growing horror as the Oil moved up her arm and into a cut from the fall, disappearing slowly beneath her goosefleshed skin. She suddenly felt the searing pain as more of the Oil slid into her. She couldn't refrain as she let tears of white agony flow down her face. 

She shook her arms to rid herself of the Oil without half of her brain functioning as her own, but it clung to her with vengeance. Worms of Oil slimed through her muscles, passing through her body freely and black clouded her vision. Trails of black tears flowed out of her eyes, but then back into her mouth. He mind slowly slid out of her grasp. 

Krycek could only stare in trepidation as Demona's body limped to the floor and her head stared up at the ceiling, her jaw slacked and her eyes staring sightless above her. Krycek managed his pain and tripped over to Demona, pulling her weight and the massing Oil's. Angry liquid swirled over her eyes and stared at him with anger and hatred that he dared steal their victim away. 

Demona's eyes began to flutter wildly and her breathing was hitching and sucking. All of her muscles spasmed and she twitched violently, her hand clamped around Krycek's nearly breaking the fingers. Her breathing then slowed and she let go of him, Krycek sighed with relief. Then, along with her breathing, her heart stopped. 

It was an automated fear-response: he began chest compressions with sore arms and covered her lips with his and breathed life into her lungs, not even thinking of his own pain. He would have enjoyed himself thoroughly, but of course, his partner was dying. Oil slick laced her mouth and cowered away from his. She could have accidentally inhaled; maybe that was why she had stopped breathing, but more likely her heart attack did it. 

Krycek's breath caught in Demona's throat and her chest heaved by itself for breath and Oil spewed into him. He paused and wiped the Oil that clung to his face with disgust, the strings of oil clinging to his face like saliva. He tilted Demona upwards as she began to vomit not only Oil, but also her previous stomach contents including what smelled like vodka and citrus. 

Demona's chest continued to undulate as she took deep hitching, sucking breaths, trying to breathe on her own, and battle with the wills of the Oil to take over her body functions. Krycek forced his fingers down her swollen throat again to get the rest of it out of her. She'd be in serious pain later, but she'd live...he hoped. He wiped stings of saliva, blood and Oil from her mouth, the blood mostly likely from her stretched larynx. 

Krycek cursed and fumbled in his pockets, searching for the antidote that he always carried as unnecessary insurance. He had no certains it would work for Demona---the Oilien could have had time to strengthen itself into immunity. Demona's skin already began blistering with an allergic reaction to the Black Cancer. 

He found the vial of antidote, still fresh and pristine and twisted off the lid. His broken hands fumbled with the lid, and he cursed as they refused to obey. He forced open Demona's locked jaw and drained the liquid in her mouth. He couldn't believe that her constricted throat would allow her to swallow it, but he stroked her throat, encouraging her to swallow. 

Nothing. 

"Dammit!" he screamed at her near-lifeless body. _They'll never forgive me. The Syndicate will never forgive me if she dies. I could never forgive myself._ "Don't do this to me! Don't you dare!" 

Krycek forced his fingers in her mouth again, but there was only saliva this time. 

Demona's skin still blistered angry red blotches. She moaned out loud in pain at Oil trying to rip her from her own consciousness and into its own. 

Krycek was about to administer a second dosing of antidote, but as if it had suddenly decided Demona was a poor host, the Oil began backtracking at lightning speed, coursing out of Demona's body. Her eyes shot open and she bolted upright, reaching out blindly.

"Oh my God, Demona," he said, catching her in his arms, "can you breathe?" 

Demona took a breath that ended quickly in tears, "It hurts..." 

"Come on, Demona, you can," Krycek encouraged. "Do it!" 

Her fingers gripped his hand with incredible strength as she felt the pain sear in her body. She couldn't help but pull Krycek close to her, to feel someone else. She shook with fear as she began to cry, clinging to Krycek and sobbing into his shoulder. Her tears wet his cheek and he wanted only to hold her and to ease away her pain at that moment. 

"It'll be okay," Krycek assured. "Breathe, Demona. I need you to calm down and breathe for me." 

"It hurts so much," Demona rasped. 

"It's going to hurt for a while," Krycek said. Her knee was beginning to swell against her leather pants, and he knew there was no way that she was going to be able to walk on her own. He cut a lateral slice into her pants with his pocketknife, against her protests, to relieve the pressure somewhat. He bit back his own pain and lifted her from the ground, adjusting her gently in his arms. 

"What are you doing," she asked weakly. 

"There's no way I'm letting you walk anywhere," he insisted. 

"You're hurt..." 

"I'll live. You were the one who just suffered a heart attack," he replied. 

Demona said nothing in reply; she was too weak to protest anymore. She was too weak to fight whatever she had been feeling for Krycek. She just needed to let someone else take all the burdens off of her shoulders. She sighed and rested her head against Krycek's chest, lulled into blessed unconsciousness against his warmth. 

Krycek looked down at her and he could feel his feelings for her flicker more than just a little spark. He had to protect her; she needed him now. 

He needed her. 

***

The hotel room door swung open and Krycek carried the unconscious Demona through the threshold. His arms ached, but Demona was so light it was like he was carrying a sack of wet feathers. He placed her on the bed gently, for a few moments watching her as she slept through some of her pain. He had to wake her up to make sure she wasn't dying. 

"Demona," he said, coaxing her with a gentle hand. Her eyebrows knitted together like she was fighting sleep, but she didn't wake up. Again, Krycek cupped her face in his hand and gently stroked her skin, "Demona, wake up." 

"Mmm, Krycek?" She struggled to sit up, but her body had other ideas. "Where are we?" her voice was harsh and scratchy because of her strangulation. 

"Back in the hotel room," he replied, moving his hand back to his side. "Can you remember anything?" 

"Everything, unfortunately," she groaned, putting her hand to her forehead, where she touched the dried blood. "My throat hurts," she grogged. 

Krycek leaned over her carefully and examined her neck. Ruslan's handprint was bruised into her neck; each blood vessel was clearly blackened against her skin. He got a look into her eyes and noticed some of the vessels were also broken there. God, she was going to look like hell for the next few days. He got some aspirin from his bag and ground it into a powder into a cup of water. He held it to Demona's lips as she swallowed it painfully and slowly, then wiped away the rivulet that trailed down her chin. Her emerald eyes stared at him with neither accusation nor acceptance. 

"Thank you," she rasped at long last, "for saving my life." 

"I just repaid a debt," he admitted, "from London." 

"As if someone's life were a debt," she replied, cutting it off because of the pain. 

"Shh," he replied, "it's better if you don't speak for a while." 

She nodded slowly and lay back, looking as pale as a ghost on a deathbed. She looked down at her swollen knee and touched it gingerly. "You ripped my pants, Krycek: these things were expensive. ...I'm going to need some ice," she noted, ignoring his warning and her former statement. 

"The ice from earlier still hasn't melted," he said as he wrapped the clump into a bath towel. He wrapped it around her swollen joint delicately as she winced horribly at the pain. "I think it's dislocated." 

"Urk," she whispered. 

"You know, I have to set it," he admitted. 

She nodded to him through her pain; "Do what you have to." 

Krycek moved to the edge of the bed and grasped her ankle with one hand, her tiny ankle fitting snugly in the wrap of his palm. As he adjusted his grip on it and looked at Demona's face; she stared at the ceiling; her teeth ground together into nearly molten steel. He leaned forward and addressed her, "Grab the headboard." 

Demona's face paled as she realized he was going to go through with popping her knee back into the socket. She raised her arms above her head, grasping the headboard with her both hands. Her knuckles whitened as she waited for the pain. 

"I'm going to do this on three. One...two...three," he yanked sharp and hard on her ankle and listened to her screaming as the pain ripped through her entire body. He bit his lip as he shifted and moved her knee back into the socket, listening to the joints screaming and seeing the tears lining her eyes while pressed her palm to her face. 

"It's okay now, Demona," Krycek said. "It's set." 

"I wish I _had_ died," she moaned through her swollen larynx. "...I think I can place you on the 'Occupational Hazard' line on my life insurance quote." 

"Can I ask you something," he asked gently as he inched back to sitting next to her. 

"What," she replied. 

"If that guy wasn't the Oilien dealer, and just horny, would you and he...?"

"No," she replied with a force that startled him. "Never. Never again." The pain of her past resurfaced anew and she wiped away the tears from her eyes. 

"Again?" Krycek wondered. 

Demona just shook her head, "Its such a long story, Krycek. I can't even begin to explain it, but I'm sure you can put two and to together." 

Krycek nodded gently. "Go to sleep, Demona. It's been a long, long day. I'm sure we both want to forget it." 

"Some things you can't forget, Krycek. Unfortunately, I have a long, long list of them. Please, Krycek, stay with me." 

"I'm here now." 

"No, Krycek, I need you here," she motioned to the space on the bed next to her. 

Krycek leaned over and touched her face tenderly, unafraid, "I can't, Demona. I'm sorry." 

Demona shook her head, "You can, and you must. ...For me." 

"I won't let you let me take advantage of you when you are this weak," he insisted. "You're suffering, and I refuse to add to it." 

"Krycek, I know what I am saying," Demona replied. "I need someone tonight: not to sleep with. I just need someone to touch again." 

"Like that guy at the club?" 

"Ruslan?" 

"Yeah, Ruslan," he replied. "I gather you let him go far before he hijacked you." 

Demona swallowed and turned her head away, "I don't think you would understand, Krycek." 

"I'm not as dumb as you'd like to think. I have seen quite a lot," he said and yet he could not argue with her anymore. He moved up to the other side of the bed next to her. He stripped himself of his icy jacket and shed it onto the floor next to the bed. He sat nest to where she lay, and gathered her into his arms. She turned her head and looked at him demurely, almost frightened, not used to having him this close to her. 

She turned her whole body and hugged herself to him, feeling his warmth. He rested his chin on the top of her head for a moment and then looked into her face. His hand gently touched her, allowing himself the brief feeling of her soft skin, enjoying the fact that he didn't feel like he was imposing on her. He took his hand from her face and trailed it down through her hair, stroking the silky softness. She took his hand and held it to her face longer, allowing a tear to slide down it and onto the tips of his fingers. 

"Don't cry," he ordered in a whisper. 

"If you could only know," Demona sniffed. 

"I loved him," was a drowsy statement against his collarbone. "I should have went to have seen him." 

"Seen who?" 

"My father." 

"Your father?" 

"No, my lover, my mentor, my bother," she murmured. For a minute, Krycek though she had passed out, but she sighed against him and blinked. Her soft lashes tickled his skin. 

"You don't have to hate me anymore," Krycek confided. He leaned forward gently to whisper into her ear, but the touch of her lips on his was like silk on steel. He was surprised at himself, and moved back from her. 

Demona's hand came to the back of his head and held his mouth against hers, taking him into her. Krycek took that moment to reciprocate, allowing himself the forbidden passion that he had wanted for so long. 

"Please, Demona" he asked again, "don't hate me anymore." 

"I don't hate you, Krycek; I haven't for such a long time," she replied against him, her voice muffled in his chest. "I just...don't feel like we could trust each other." 

"Perhaps," he admitted. It looked like the batter was getting a free swing. 

***

The next morning, Demona woke with the first rays of light hitting her face. She swallowed what tasted like blood and felt the heavy weight in the bed next to her as it rolled closer to her. "Shit." 

"Thanks," Krycek replied as he sat up. "I thought you wanted me to stay with you." 

"I _did_," she rasped, her throat still hurting. "That's not it." 

"It's not?" There was relief in his throat as thick as syrup, he nearly choked on it. 

"We didn't get the Oil." 

"I know," he replied. 

"We failed." 

"I know." More deadpan. 

"Thank you for the vote of confidence," she said as she tested her weight on her knee. The pain was present, though not as bad. The pain in her throat was almost worse. She had definitely seen better days. She hobbled to and fro as she went through everything that had happened. "We failed The Syndicate, Krycek. Do you know what that means?" 

"You must have been the brown-noser when you were at school, weren't you," Krycek asked with a casual smile from the bed where he still laid. He had worn his clothes through the entire night, and he looked like he wanted to sleep without being semi-crushed by her weight. 

She refused to reply to his comment about school: if only he knew what school had been: being completely ignored and note cared about; busywork finished with a perfunctory mentality. Hardly brown-nose-able material. 

"Don't look so hurt," he dodged his folly. 

"How can you be so unconcerned about this," she asked, pulling a t-shirt over her head. Krycek's eyes leveled themselves to her face as his cheeks reddened. 

"How can you think I'm not?" 

"I don't know, it may have been the fact that you are joking with me about it," she snapped angrily. She wished she hadn't, her head reeled angrily with the pain in her throat, which constricted with more blood. 

"Listen, I told you about Oil, Demona," Krycek's voice was deadly serious, "if the Oiliens wander freely, chances are, it _will_ gain the upper hand. Now, whereas we can't let that happen, we can't do any more good in our condition." 

"What about our condition?" 

"The fact that you are barely walking should have been the first clue, the second should have been the fact that you look like the Living Dead." 

"And you? What prevents you from not completing our job?" She was gasping for breath, at the exhaustion but she couldn't have been sure if he heard her. 

"Emotional detachment," he replied with flip nonchalance. 

"That sounds like a Union excuse." 

"Let's just say that Spender and I haven't been seeing eye-to-eye for the past five years," Krycek responded and his eyes lowered. 

"And leaving will kill you," she nodded. 

"Correct. I figure the only reason why Spender keeps me around is because I won't die," he smiled wanly. "He's tried my life so many times, it's nearly impossible to count; and he makes sure that I am so far down the food chain that even the scavengers won't pick at my bones." 

"And you put up with it?" 

"As you said yourself, if I leave I die. ...I figure the only way I do get out of this mess is by getting killed." 

"Catch-22," she agreed. "So what do we do?" 

"I figure the only thing that we can do is know when to quit," he said. "I'm sure Spender has others. He employs methods in increments. Usually the expendable and blind go first, and then he uses methods that actually work." 

"Nice strategy," she replied. "Sick population control." 

"Not even that, Demona: its homicide, pure and simple." 

"And me? I was infected with the Oil? What happened?" 

"I can't figure that one out, really," he admitted, scratching at the stubble carpeting his face. "Nearest I can tell is an allergic reaction: anaphylactic shock, leading into a heart attack. It's happened before." 

"Does this mean that every time that I am infected, I will get a heart attack?" 

"Wait a minute: you are jumping ahead of yourself. First, I don't think we'll run into the Oilien any time soon: I killed Ruslan and he was the biggest dealer in Moscow. Second, The Syndicate created a antidote to the Oiliens, which counter-acted the Oiliens by forcing the body to create alien antibodies faster than anything your body could normally produce." 

"So I am immune," she wasn't convinced. She didn't seem to show any reaction to Krycek killing Ruslan. 

"As near as I can tell, _if_ you ever run into it again, you should be fine," he lied. He wasn't a scientist, he couldn't be sure of anything. But even a scientist couldn't be sure about it: alien science was on a whole different ball field than human science. It was a wonder that humans were even worth the Grey's while: why they would come back and use the human race for even slaves was beyond his comprehension. 

It was a low opinion of his species, but Alex Krycek was never one to call himself an optimist. 

"You killed Ruslan?" 

"He would have killed you." 

She sighed and blinked slowly. "What about his body?" 

"Chances are, if it is ever found, no one will be able to pin it on us." 

"You promise," she smiled innocently. 

"I swear." 

"...I understand what you meant when you were talking about a hell, Krycek. You're right, though when you noted that I had no idea what I was signing into when I entered The Syndicate." 

"If you want to know the truth, Demona, I didn't either. I suppose this is the universal proof of why someone should do research." 

There is nothing left for us here," Demona said softly. "We have to go." 

Alex couldn't have agreed more. 

-End-

   [1]: mailto:TrekPhile47@hotmail.com



	5. E Pur Si Muove

E Pur Si Muove

Disclaimer: The Syndicate, CGB Spender and Alex Krycek belong to Chris Carter and 1013 Productions. No copyright infringement intended.

Spoiler: _En Ami_

Keywords: Angst, Romance

Archive: Only with the written consent from the author: [TrekPhile47@hotmail.com][1]

***

Wise men have been known to say that time moves on in good and in bad, and it is a human's business to move on with it. 

The truth is always concealed by the lie, enveloped in a soft embrace and protected with harsh steel. It can only be one person to find their truth, no one can find it for them. If the time and opportunity is right, one can find the truth at any cost. 

And still it moves. 

***

It had been a long time in coming, but Demona Launce felt it was her due time. She had called up The Syndicate, asking for this meeting, knowing it would be her last, in whichever way The Syndicate wanted to take it. 

Everything worth having came with a price: especially freedom. Freedom was want Demona wanted so badly, freedom since the fact that she had been closer to dying at the hands of The Syndicate than at any other time in her life. 

It was easy to get The Syndicate together. They traveled in that courage-bolstering herd. All were there. 

Except Krycek, who probably needed to hear this the most. He needed to know that she was moving up and on from this hell. 

It had taken Russia and a year of other hell for her to realize it, the days had been so painful as she looked in the mirror every morning, she still could see some of the blackness under her eyes and the bruises at her neck still hadn't fully disappeared, making her skin look a lot like muddy water. The effect was disgusting and bringing her eyes to look at herself was almost too painful to bear. It wasn't even worth tying to plaster it over with makeup: makeup didn't cover the mental damage done by Russia. 

She was a walking time bomb. She had nearly died at the hands of something so alien that she couldn't even grasp it with her openness of mind. It was what haunted her dreams and cursed her thoughts. She knew Krycek had lied about her condition---she saw it in his eyes, she could read it over all his expression. 

She felt like she was radioactive. It had taken hours and hours in her shower to get her feeling decent, and still, she didn't feel like she could wipe the skin from her body. She didn't feel like she could ever feel clean again. 

So now, all but Krycek were congregated here in the New York office, waiting for the bomb to drop. They seemed to suspect the truth. One of the lowly-ones does not just call a meeting to say that they were blowing their nose. 

Demona stared at Spender, looking into his face, knowing the wrath that she had wrought by even thinking the thoughts that would blaspheme The Syndicate: "I'm leaving." 

"You can't just leave," First Elder replied coolly, letting any emotion slide from his face, "this is not just some game you can forfeit." 

"Too bad," Demona replied with an edge in her voice she recognized as hysteria. "I'm out and there isn't a damn thing you can say that can get me to stay here." She fumbled in her mind for all avenues of argument. Anything that she could use to win. 

"You don't seem to understand what we are saying," Spender said, "you don't leave The Syndicate without something in repay." 

"What do you want," she asked, tempting the caged animal. 

First Elder smirked, "You don't leave this office with all the knowledge that had been pumped into your head." 

Demona smirked and withdrew her gun, "Do you want to or should I?" She held the gun to the side of her head in mocking. 

Everyone else looked at her as if she had gone insane. 

"Or better yet," she trained the gun on one of them, "I know none of you are armed. How willing are you to loose one of your blessed own?" 

Spender looked on her; "This doesn't have to end in violence---"

"The hell it doesn't," Demona replied, drawing the hammer back. "You scratch my back, I scratch yours. My life for his." She trained the gun so that he would be flossing with a lead bullet. 

"Oh please," Spender sighed with trivial joviality. 

"You think that I won't do it? I know you are trying to get back onto your feet," she laughed. The man with the gun at his head betrayed faint fear as she kept her hand steady. "Could you suffer a loss? Tell me Spender: do you have the balls to risk your own?" 

"I have no doubt she will do it," Well-Manicured Man said to himself. He addressed her; "What do you want for this man's life exactly?" 

"My freedom from The Syndicate, no strings attached," she replied, not taking her eyes from the potential victim. "His life for mine." 

Silence. It was edged with fear and uncertainty. Demona could feel her fingers start to tremble with her own doubts. Would anyone hear if she blew them all to hell? Maybe, maybe not. 

"It's a deal," First Elder replied. Spender shot him a withering look of hurtful accusation. Demona un-cocked her gun and replaced it in her lap, closing her trembling fingers into a tight fist. She controlled her quaking and swallowed hard, not believing she was free. 

"Know this, you will have eyes on you: you utter a word of our plans to anyone---to a crack in the wall---and we will kill you. Are you clear?" 

"Absolutely," Demona looked at them, then turned and left. The door clicked shut behind her. 

"You goddamned idiot," Well-Manicured man accused to First Elder. He knew he was over-stepping his bounds, but he had to let out the exclamation of pure frustration. "We just let her go, who is stopping her from telling all of our secrets even at the threat of death?" 

"You must remember, we have a level of impunity," First Elder said, "if we kill her later, no one will ever persecute us." 

***

Her hands shook as she entered her apartment, and Demona sank to the floor after she was inside, weeping tears of relief and happiness. It was over; there was no more Syndicate. 

It was only a matter of her slipping back into the mainstream of life and away from the wrath that she knew was going to follow her from The Syndicate. 

One day at a time, she reminded herself. Take it one day at a time. 

No more nights on the run, no more days of boring anticipation. She didn't have to answer to the Syndicate, and she was her own person again. She was free to live, to learn---

And to love. 

But there was a vague chance that she would find anyone who had met to the same level that someone of her new past had. 

It was time for her to begin a new life and existence. She had the ability to be whatever she wanted. She could be wherever she wanted without anything to hinder her or to nag at the back of her mind. 

She burned the clothes she was wearing; she burned all the disguises, all the hardware, all the files, and all the pictures. 

But that didn't keep them from staying in her mind. 

***

Alex Krycek listened to his beeper going off at the side of his bed, jarring the wood and the empty tumblers around it. He wondered whether or not to answer it or to let it rattle itself onto the floor. 

Fifteen days. 

Fifteen days since he had returned from Russia, and already, he was beginning to long for a life he never had. Russia always tended to do that to him. This time, it had happened quicker than the last. 

Of course, the last time he had come back from Russia, it had been with a prosthesis and a bad attitude. 

His beeper stopped vibrating as he reached out for it. He sighed and rolled back over in the bed. 

Sleep was so grateful, it never asked questions: it just let him go. 

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes again, waiting for somewhat of a drink-induced stupor. The images that he hoped wouldn't come came back. The dreams of his Syndicate ways always pressed and poked through at him. 

These dreams didn't upset him anymore, not like before. They would have kept their under-level nuisance if only the star torture victim wasn't Demona Launce. 

It was no use, he wasn't going back to sleep and there was no way to avoid the day. There was no way to avoid the fact that he was insanely in love with Demona. 

He hadn't known love, only lust. Maybe this, too was lust; but it felt horribly like so much more. It was a feeling that left him empty when he thought of her, not full like lust. 

If anything, he could always see her when he was working. 

The beeper went off again. This time, Krycek looked at it. The Syndicate. 

His cell phone was in the pocket of his jeans. There were three pairs lying on the floor of his bedroom, it had to be in one of them. He found it and dialed the number. 

"Krycek," he snarled. 

"Come to the offices," First Elder said. The line went dead. 

And there goes Miss Congeniality, Krycek thought. He pulled on something that didn't smell like sweat and cheap perfume. 

The car ride was misery, the light pierced right into his head. The boding darkness of The Lair was a welcome recovery. 

"Sit. ...There is news that you must know." 

"And?" 

"Demona Launce is gone." 

"She's gone," Alex Krycek swallowed hard. He wasn't sure what this entailed: she was ether dead or out of The Syndicate. It was either his greatest hope or his deepest fear. 

"Demona left late last night," Spender replied. "One of our lives for hers." 

She took one of them hostage; Krycek laughed deep inside himself. That was the best way to do it, if there was any way at all. 

"We can't just let her go," Spender said. "She will be killed, if not today, then tomorrow, if not tomorrow, then the next day." 

None of it registered to Krycek: Demona was free. It was one slave hearing that the other had ran away. Despite the fact that she had some hope of a life, Krycek felt the harshness of the selfishness that she had left him. She had left without him, to rot away in The Syndicate without her to keep him in reality. 

"You must forget she existed." 

Krycek snapped out of his thought. Forget Demona Launce? Never. If there was anything he had learned from The Syndicate, was to never let a passion go: never turn your back on what you want. 

"I have to go," Krycek said without explanation. He was out of the door like shot. 

"He's going to see her," First Elder replied. "I knew there was something there." 

"So what," Spender replied, lighting the signature Morley. "Let him give her a pity fuck. It'll show him how much she really means to him. He'll be back." 

***

Krycek sat in his car, waiting as the traffic died down on the busy street. He looked up at the high-rise apartment building, admiring its sleekness. 

He read down the list of residents in the apartment, reaching the fifth floor and seeing Demona's name. He pressed the button and waited patiently. 

Demona didn't seem to care who it was, she buzzed him in without checking the intercom. All the better, Krycek most likely would have choked up and left. It was easier to just see her and to talk to her. So what if The Syndicate knew? It didn't matter at this point; he couldn't let Demona walk out of his life as much as she had entered it with a bang. 

He decided to take the elevator, his legs were too rubbery to climb the stairs. The elevator ascended in the apartment building with the same aggravating slow pace as his life dragged on. There were too many parallels. He tapped his foot impatiently as slowly he climbed to the fifth floor. The elevator music was really getting on his nerves by the time the doors slid open. 

The inside of the apartment was pristine white with brass trim. The wallpaper was off-white with a feather design pressed into it, and the woodwork that reached to the middle of the walls was white with scroll filigree. The carpet though was green, but a light seafoam green that looked strangely like alien bloodstains. There were lamps lighting each side of the doors with frosted glass votives and brass vine work holding them from the wall. 

Demona's door was like all the rest, plain and white, with a doorknocker. She seemed to want to jump out of the limelight and back into the main stream. She wanted to wear pressed suits to her desk job, drink plain, black coffee and read books off New York Times' Best-Seller's List. It seemed too plastic for Krycek to see Demona doing; after seeing her shoot people, beat the living hell out of him and being shady. Seeing her become a single, independent female in New York was not what Krycek saw in Demona Launce. 

He rapped lightly with the back of his knuckles; they sounded like repeated explosions from a weapon. He waited as he heard Demona walking to the door, her feminine graceful steps echoing across what sounded like expensive wood floors. Krycek wasn't a complete dumb-ass, he knew Expensive when he heard it. Hearing the feet pause in front of the door and the locks creaking made him have a sudden seizure of nerves and felt like turning with his tail planted firmly between his legs. 

Demona opened the door and a look of sheer surprise and fear fleeted across her face, "Krycek?" 

She looked really, really good. The kind of good that came with time away from what stressed you out for months. She was wearing tight jeans and an oxford blouse (buttoned quite far down). He could see the edge of a lacy bra cup showing through like a foal behind its mother. Demona must have noticed it, too, she reddened and adjusted her stance. 

"Please, Demona, just call me Alex for now. ...I'm not here to kill you," he added with a last breath. Her face fell visibly into the folds of relief. "Can I come in?" "I suppose," she replied with some degree of ice. She held the door for him and he took two wary steps in, knowing he was going to stick out like a sore thumb. Demona closed the door quietly behind him, making sure none of The Syndicate was there to attack her. 

The apartment was furnished with classic furniture; all of it looked like it hadn't been lived in. A sweater draped across the back of one and magazines lay open like damaged butterflies. There was a faint smell of smoke in the entire house. 

She led Krycek through her nice sitting room down the hall to her study, where she had him sit on a leather chair by a window. She lowered the volume on her CD, which was playing something soft and melodic and like jazz, but Krycek couldn't name the tune or the band. 

Books lined the walls, some of them old, some new. Some lay out on her desk, open with dog-ears, some just stacked up in large piles waiting for Demona to reach out and read their delicate words. 

They said nothing for a few moments; Demona sized him up to some extent, reading everything about him. She hadn't seen him in a week and she had already noticed things about him that were different. Why did he have to come? She was just starting to be comfortable without her erotic dreams about him. Damn him. 

"Hello, Alex," she murmured. "How have you been?" 

"Well enough," Krycek replied quietly. "I heard that you left. Congratulations." 

She didn't share his exuberance. She was mutely silent---painfully pinched into uncaring. She was hiding something. 

"Has The Syndicate done anything to you?" 

"No," she admitted. "They gave their word..." she paused, knowing exactly what that phrase entailed. 

"How are you handling the free life?" 

She had taken a sighing breath that made her real face come through. It was a mixture of inane fear and extramarital bliss. It was as open as the book she had written her life into...Krycek didn't even need an answer; only a dolt would have asked twice. 

"If not to kill me, then why are you here?" 

Instantly, his mind went to their first kiss. He had tasted her passion in them, he had tasted fire and it didn't burn him: he wanted to do it again. "I was just wondering how you were doing." 

"A person 'just wondering' does not risk life and limb," she commented colder than Jack Frost. Jeez, when had she gotten a psychology degree? She was starting to banter in the same way Mulder did when he was headlong in some explanation only cows would stand still long enough to hear. 

She watched as Krycek's face played emotions over them: something like worry, then fear, then caring and then lust. She knew the last feeling well, too. So strange that now she needed him to be there, as somewhat her protective guard, and before he was quite a nuisance to her. 

Krycek swallowed, attaining the defense that one had to get with Mulder: "I just needed to know that you were safe." 

"Wouldn't The Syndicate have told you if they had killed me?" 

Krycek choked back a snort, "They think that I had something to do with your leaving: that I told you how to hit them where it hurt. They haven't been informing me of everything since I entered this viscous circle." 

Demona looked at him, with a sadness that only came from understanding, "Time changes so many things." 

Krycek nodded. He was blank; his mind had nothing left to bring to her. All he needed was to look on her, to know that she was there and safe; not dead, dangling from a Syndicate noose or bleeding from a Syndicate gunshot. 

It was too harsh for him to know and allow the fact that he had seen so much that he couldn't tell normal human reality from Syndicate reality. He wasn't sure if Demona could be real, if anything was real. He really wished he had pulled his head out of his ass sooner; maybe he could have joined the low-level witlessness that Demona was struggling to get back to. 

Demona read his thoughts, "You know what Kry---Alex? I read that folder that The Syndicate without ever knowing what I had gotten myself into. I accepted The Syndicate without even knowing what water I was jumping into. I can't erase what The Syndicate has burned into my head. You were right in Russia when you mentioned the whole 'contract' thing to me." 

Krycek nodded sympathetically; somehow, pouring Syndicate misery into the same pitcher with Demona wasn't as hard as he would have realized. Demona seemed to like the company he offered to her misery. "Think of the things that I have seen." 

Demona closed her eyes, shutting her brain off the floodwaters of her imagination, but the over-stressed dams had given way to murky seawater. 

She saw horrible deaths, saw medical patients lying on tables, screaming to be let free. She saw aliens, looking down on their subjects, their eyes blank and uncaring. She saw the Greys and The Faceless Rebels battling one another; she saw dying Alien Bounty Hunters, spraying green everywhere. She saw people staring at her; the Oiliens washed over their eyes. Everything she had burned had burned itself right back into her. It would take years of therapy to erase them. 

"Demona? Demona!" Krycek said, rising from his chair. Demona had closed her eyes, then began trembling with tears running down her face. 

He touched her gently and her eyes snapped open; her hands went to defend herself from an invisible assailant, but Alex only held her gently. She opened her mouth to speak again, and her body broke into full sobs. 

Krycek could do nothing but pull her up into his arms, comforting her like he had in Russia. He pulled his own broken hands through her hair, whispering empty words that could never ease away the horrors of The Syndicate reality. Demona's eyes wetted his cheek, the salt stinging some scratches, but soothing the pain that he had felt damming up against him. 

"I didn't mean to say anything," Krycek replied. 

Demona conceded, giving way to the tears, letting them cleanse her. She took a shuddering breath and began with somewhat calmer, but not without an audible lump in her throat, "Years of wanting my own life led to my enslavement by something I couldn't understand: something I couldn't handle." 

If there were only some miracle cure, Krycek willed. 

"...I'm okay," she assured him, breaking away. She wiped the tears that had collected in her eyes, then wiping away Krycek's with tender hands. His whole being shuddered at her touch. 

He nodded dumbly, he decided to sit in a chair closer to her, waiting for another inevitable collapse in Syndicate Withdrawal. He would be there; he would always try to catch the falling glass that was her demeanor. 

"How can you think of it without all the pain," she asked. 

"Because, Demona, I have turned indifferent eyes to it. I cannot be moved anymore by screams of fear and pain. I cannot look into a fear-laden face without turning icy," Krycek admitted with grief. "I can look a man dead in the eye when I kill them. Do you know how that wakes me screaming?" 

New tears slipped down her cheeks; "There isn't a day that passes in my mind that I don't see my family. There isn't a day that passes when I think that I was so close to joining them when I was...infected." She swallowed off her last word, strangling the idea with a whipped-puppy noise. Her lower lip trembled with violence; "Some days I wish that I were dead now, but there is no way I could wipe what I have seen and done for The Syndicate from my soul." 

Please don't, Krycek begged, _I couldn't live if you died. I couldn't let The Syndicate live if you died_. "After a while, you wonder if you ever had a soul." 

Demona stared at him with the hollow eyes of pain, but knowing full what he had said. 

Some days, he had to wake up and say, "If I kill today, it will not matter, I have killed before, I will continue to kill. One more screaming hybrid will not elicit my tears, one more dying Grey will not frighten me." 

Krycek had willed those words into his brain day after day, hour after hour. His first killing had left him black, empty and guilty; his first screaming hybrid had left him sobbing in an abandoned office; and his first dying Grey had scared him to his very core---enough to be afraid to sleep. 

"Have you ever felt for what you did?" 

"At first," Krycek replied. "It made for very bumpy roads, which aren't comfortable to ride on. The option for me was to just not admit that my fear and regret affected me." 

"Do you ever hate yourself down to every fiber of your existence for it," Demona's voice was not harsh and accusing, it was asking him whether or not it was the same way she felt. 

"It makes my hate my entire existence, making me want to just peel off flesh and wonder if there will be a new me---an old me waiting beneath," Krycek said. "It makes me fear looking into The Syndicate." 

Demona pressed her hands to her face, making her memories fall out of her head. They stubbornly refused to budge. 

They sat in their silence; finally something of comfort that Krycek could almost feel around him. Demona was soft and serene, despite the fact that she was battling a plague of her tears. Krycek had realized that Demona was so inward that he had only seen her cry twice: and he was so stony that she had never seen him smile, laugh or at ease. Some couple they made. 

Some couple they would never make. 

"Thank you, Alex." 

"For what?" 

"Being here." 

"I had to come." 

"Why?" 

Because I love you, he shouted in his head. "I had to know the truth: I couldn't let you die without seeing you." 

Demona gave something of a snort and a sob: "There are so many things about me that you don't know, Krycek---there are so many things I don't even know about you. If I told you what I am hiding behind The Syndicate wall would you run? Would you not want to know the truth?" 

Krycek looked on her with pure emotions. She was so strong, but yet almost too weak to stand on her own; she was so compassionate, but she hated herself for feeling. He wanted to help her stand; he wanted to show her how to feel (though he himself knew nothing in that area). "I want to know you, Demona. I've wanted to know you since I first saw you." 

"There is nothing inside." 

Krycek shook his head sadly, "There is something." 

"I don't know myself anymore! Somewhere under all of this Syndicate mess, there is me, but I haven't seen it in so long." 

"I know who you are," Krycek said, taking her hand and staring into her eyes. "I know you are strong, and I know that you are passionate. All I want now is to be a part of that passion: all I want is to be in love with you. I want you to love me back"

Demona didn't say anything: she took his face in her hands, tracing her thumbs over his lips. She leaned in and touched him briefly for a moment, then let any restraints go. Krycek accepted her into his arms, finally he was whole with what he desired and needed the most: the love of Demona Launce. As they held each other together, Demona cried, her tears falling down her face and into their mouths. 

Her taste was salty and sweet to Krycek. It was everything that he had wanted in her, and so much more. Her mouth was hungry for him, hungry for his want to add to hers. 

"I'm so lost," Demona's head fell back as he kissed his way around her neck, letting him take her flesh between his teeth, making her blood rise into her face. 

"I'll find you," Krycek promised, "I'll look forever if I have to." 

"I..." Demona was silenced as Krycek's hand found her head, pulling her into his mouth, into his head. She opened her mouth to him, letting him in to her mind and her thoughts. 

"I love you," Krycek's words fell through her mouth like water. It was a lot easier to say to her than he thought they would be. 

"Alex," she moaned, "I have wanted you so badly. I..." Demona was silenced as Krycek placed a gentle finger to her lips. She opened herself to him, letting him in to her mind and her thoughts. 

"You need to know something Demona: you need to know that I love you. I haven't always in the beginning, but I always will," Krycek's words fell through her mouth like water. It was a lot easier to say to her than he thought they would be. 

"Alex," she cried into his neck, "I have loved you from far away, but I was afraid to get near you." 

It was all the invitation he needed. He kissed her again, holding onto her as if she were his last salvation---and she was, she was his last chance that he would ever have to live freely and to love. 

She felt so small in his arms, like a piece of art almost. It was beautiful and grand as it sat up on its pedestal so far from reach, yet tantalizingly close. But once that piece of art is your and you can touch it and feel it; somehow it is real, and it is not so big anymore, but it is still precious and somehow worth so much more. 

"I have loved you for so long," Demona said. "It was everything I have thought of." 

Krycek nodded, working his hands through her hair. "The Syndicate can't have you, I won't let them." 

Demona sighed against his cheek, unwilling to let go, "You cannot stop the inevitable. They want me dead, and no amount of your protection can stop what they want done. Are you willing to step in and perhaps get killed?" 

"I don't care about the risks, Demona. I want you to be mine," Krycek said, his voice etched with serious pain. "I would die for you right here, I would sell my soul to whatever devil is beyond The Syndicate for you." 

"I want you, Demona. I want you to be mine," Krycek said, his voice etched with serious pain. "I would die for you right here, I would sell my soul to whatever devil is beyond The Syndicate for you." 

"Forever, Alex; forever you and I," she promised. 

"Marry me," he begged. 

"I can't," she shattered his world. 

"Why can't you?" he said through shocked lips. Demona placed a hand to her mouth and shook her head as if she couldn't believe what she had said to him. "Demona, you have to tell me; you can't just lead me to the middle of nowhere and then tell me to get back on my own." 

"I can't marry you because you are already married," she said cryptically. 

"And when the hell was _I_ told about this," he tried to cover his annoyance with a coy smile. 

"I'm serious, Krycek," she said, reverting herself to calling him by his last name. "I can't marry you when you are still married to The Syndicate." 

"_Screw_ The Syndicate," he nearly shouted. The Syndicate is laden with lies, it makes up the rules as it goes. I am not married to it." 

"So you say," she replied. "But you don't see yourself the way I see you: you are addicted to danger and inconsistency." 

"I thought _you_ were the one to enjoy danger." 

"And you didn't? You knew the thrill of the hunt; the secrets that kept us all going! You probably know _that_ better than I do," she hollered at him, barely able to control her shaking. "I barely know all of your actions in The Syndicate, and yet, I still know that whatever you have done has gotten you hooked." 

"You think that I enjoyed the killing that I just told you I hated," his face flamed red. 

She was silent. 

Krycek pulled her to his body, enjoying the way her face betrayed fear in that he may try to kill her to. He kissed her on the lips, holding her there despite her struggles to break away. He finally broke and whispered into her ear; "How can I love you so much and still be of The Syndicate?" 

"You can't." 

"I don't want The Syndicate to kill whatever we have. The Syndicate means nothing to me anymore; it hasn't for a long time." 

"Are you sure," she asked, deadly serious. "I can't live with you and The Syndicate as your shadow." 

"Marry me," he asked again. 

"No," she whispered. 

"I will _never_ let you leave me again," he avowed gently. "I swear to God I will follow you until you tell me you will marry me." 

"Then you will be following me for a damn long time. ...You'd be willing to give up all Syndicate power for me?" 

"I'd give up my life for you," Krycek replied, pulling her in for another found-love kiss. "Promise me you won't leave me for anything," he asked again.

"Alex, I could never promise anyone anything that would ever mean anything in the end," she said. Her voice was quiet even though the words were harsh rebuke. 

"Demona, I can't ever let you go, I'll go crazy without you. I'll end up hanging or shooting myself," he said.

"You'll have to manage," she shrugged, but she comforted him slightly with a kiss. "You have to understand we both have issues to deal with: we're too screwed up now to make each other happy." 

"I don't need anything to make me happy except knowing that you are with me." 

"Shh," she placed a hand to his lips. "I won't hear it now, we'll discuss it later." 

As a final comment, she rested her lips on his mouth, stinging him with her touch. Krycek could only bury his head deep within her chest; it was the only way to keep the hot tears from burning his eyes out. "Make love to me Alex." 

"Here? Now?" 

"Here, now and always," she replied as he lifted her from her feet. Let whatever hell come: it could not touch them. 

***

Spender held his head in his hands; he had just received a call. 

"You look like your world just fell apart," First Elder said with irony. 

"Krycek just called. He said he's out." 

"That just means that our cause to kill Demona will break Krycek as well," First Elder replied. "We kill Demona, it breaks Krycek, and we get him back. He never would have left if it weren't for Demona." 

"So, we proceed as planned?" 

"Absolutely." 

-End-

   [1]: mailto:TrekPhile47@hotmail.com



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